Originally Posted by Doug E

If I read you correctly you are saying either Moscow and Washington were in agreement to compete with each other and fool the world about doing so or you're saying RASA and NASA faked their accomplishments and fooled their own governments for more funding. Both ideas seem pretty ridiculous but then, I'm but an ignorant non-conspiracy theorist.

Ideological domination was a bigger goal for both the US and USSR leadership during the Sputnik and the Moon landing era. If either was proven faked it would have been a huge global propaganda coup for either nation which would have been far more important than speeding up the discovery and development of any projected technology at the time. Regardless, the space race was about more than just international prestige. It was important for the development of better aircraft, missile and surveillance technology and competition for all three of those would have continued on both sides with or without the USSR disproving the moon landing.

In other words, in my uneducated opinion Russia would have had nothing to lose and everything to gain by discrediting the United States' moon landing.