Once we determined the atmosphere of the moon, there was little chance of it being used for human colonization. There basically is no atmosphere on the moon. It is considered to actually be a vacuum. Without that atmosphere to absorb the harmful radiation of the sun, there would be little way for us to live and run electronics without large amounts of shielding and importing of our own oxygen. Also, while the rocks retrieved from the moon were interesting, they had no water or signs of life or anything to help us sustain our lives. After the many trips of the 70's and waning public interest, it was time to move on to something else.
Martian atmosphere does provide ample quantities of CO2 and argon. The CO2 can be used to create fuel to return back to Earth and the abundance of argon provides good shielding from solar radiation. While better than the moon for protection against the solar elements, we would need a huge global warming effort there to sustain life.
So, I personally have little doubt that we went to the moon. Additionally, out government officials could have gotten a lot more votes by giving that money away in other forms rather than television entertainment and trust me...they like staying elected. After Apollo 12 there wasnt nearly as much interest in the program.
One big thing about this that the Russians contend is that it is impossible for the Apollo 11 and the astronauts to have survived the earth's higher radiation field known as the "Van Allen radiation belt". I actually do wonder how that is possible since none of the astronauts came back with any identifiable injuries or radiation burns. NASA owes it all to good suits.
I also found it interesting that the temperature goes from 250 degrees above 0 in the sun and 250 degrees below in the shadows. Also there was high levels of a solar flare during the time of the mission. Yes those must have been some pretty tough suits.
Oliron, and just think those are 1960 suits! Do we even make suits in 2010 that can do half that?
KNtoran, well in this Thread's video source: Source 8 they contend that the astronauts left reflectors which can then be picked up by a photon beam on earth.