I think the orbit was observable from the earth. So, why was there a staged event concerning the landing? Did the mission determine they could not safely make it to the surface and started a studio operation to keep funding? To fool the Russians? I guess what I do not understand is after the failure and fire on the launch pad which killed three Astronauts, they actually expanded the budget for NASA, so I certainly do not understand the attempt to commit a fraud as a funding issue. I guess as a poker player, I need to see what our motivation would be for faking the landing when we clearly were orbiting the moon. It does not make sense, but I am all ears if there is a logical reason to fake the moon landing, and I guess the part which I would need to understand is the "who" faked the landing. Was it just NASA, fooling the rest of the government? If that was the case, how do you keep a couple thousand people silent who were controllers and lower level personnel? Was it President Nixon or the CIA who were fooling Congress and the American People.......for what end goal? Was it some secret organization which controls America, which I am ignorant?
In the end, anything is possible, but if I played poker with the same methodology which establishes that the moon landing was a fake, I would not be playing poker very long. Yes, it could have happened, but why would they fake it when they were orbiting the moon?