According to psychologists, the idea of having knowledge of secrets, conspiracies, or other “special” information is alluring to people. That is why, every few years or so, a television show or Internet rumor re-circulates about the Moon landings being a hoax. Some people are willing to believe them, even though those shows and rumors are false.

The thought of faked Moon landings does indeed fire our imaginations. But the reality—that thousands of people, working together for years, spending billions of dollars, conducting unprecedented research, and creating remarkable feats of science and engineering, actually landed people on the Moon and brought them safely back to Earth—is far more fascinating and awe-inspiring. The work of the Apollo project, and of the space program overall, is thoroughly documented, with thousands of hours of recordings and millions of pages of paper, and are widely available for everyone to see and study.