Was the Moon Landing Fake?

One of the more famous conspiracy theories is that the moon landing was fake.  The moon landing in 1969 was at the height of the space race and The Cold War, which lead some to believe that the moon landing was faked to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union who had beat the United States to space.  As a whole this conspiracy is widely debated and has inspired even a MythBusters episode where they test some conspiracies regarding the landing.  Many points have been discussed as to why the moon landing could or could not have happened.

Key Points of the moon landing being fake

1. Astronauts could not have survived due to cosmic radiation among other things
2. The flag planted on the moon seemed to flutter as if there was wind blowing on it
3. NASA faked the landing to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union
4. The landing used a sound stage and was easier than actually going to the moon

As it turns out mythbusters did an episode where they discussed different moon landing conspiracies and actually debunked many of these points to the moon landing conspiracy.

Do these points hold up?

1. The aluminum hull of the Apollo spacecraft actually protected the astronauts from ionizing radiation as it turns out.
2. If you take the photos of Neil Armstrong mid salute of the flag and after, the flag stays stationary.  While this myth had plausibility it is seen that the flag does not move in between pictures.  Myth Busters also tested this in a vacuum chamber and found in normal pressures the flag fell while in the vacuum it continued to flutter due to the momentum of the planting and later stayed in position due to a lack of gravity.

3. If NASA had faked the moon landing then this would have been a solid motive to do so.  As already stated earlier the space race was at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.  Winning the space race would have been huge for America for they would be able to “beat” communism.  This motive holds.
4. As a first thought this makes sense.  America could have just used a soundstage as to not risk the lives of the astronauts and they could save money in the process.  The fact though is the technology to fake the landing did not exist at the time this took place.  The technology needed to make a fake stage, and have good enough cameras to fake simply did not exist

The moon landing was a huge part of American history.  Points to this conspiracy are well thought out and do make sense with a first thought but the truth is that upon analysis this conspiracy theory does not hold up.  With this evidence it is safe to say that the moon landing could not have been faked.

sources include

Wikipedia. Accessed November 10, 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories.

"The Space Race." History.com. Accessed November 3, 2015. http://www.history.com/topics/space-race.

Diaz, Jesus. "Why the Moon Landings Could Have Never EVER Been Faked: The Definitive Proof." Gizmodo. January 18, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2015. http://gizmodo.com/5977205/why-the-moon-landings-could-have-never-ever-been-faked-the-definitive-proof.

"MythBusters 2008 Season." Wikipedia. Accessed November 10, 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2008_season)#Episode_104_.E2.80.93_.22NASA_Moon_Landing.22.