I very much hope the lunar landings were real.
I guess that argument sounds reasonably convincing - thank goodness - but what shocked me was that all three astronauts behaved so gauchely when asked to swear they went to the moon, and that they were very wooden when asked about visible stars.
David
About this swearing on the bible, keep in mind that Bart Sibrel would have been a pain in the behind to them for a long time.
When he asked them to swear on the bible, how should they react? They probably simply tried to ignore him as much as possible.
And if you know Sibrel mostly approached the astronauts under false pretense, of course this is all going to be very awkward.
About the "wooden" performance of the astronauts at the press conference, the fragment in the movie is just seconds from a 1h 23min event:
You can judge for yourself, it is actually a pretty interesting piece of history.
The fragment shown in the movie starts at about 47minutes, it also shows the fragment in the movie is heavily edited to single out the statement about seeing the stars, make of that what you want.
If you watch the whole of the interaction with Patrick Moore it looks a lot less wooden to me.
In my impression, these are three men who are not used to be at the center of attention, in the beginning of this presser they are indeed very wooden, but as soon as they start the presentation they get more comfortable, and we even see some banter.
We also have to remember the time this occurs, we can not compare this to the slick media events we are used to now.
The idea of simply putting the three of them on a podium, without any support, seems ludicrous now.
Can you imagine a similar press conference happening a this moment?
The format would be undoubtedly very different.
My guess it would look much more like a talk show, probably moderated by a highly experienced media figure, someone who can put them more at ease.