Skeptics question lunar landings

WASHINGTON: Forty years after Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the surface of the moon, there are still those who insist that his giant leap for mankind happened on a film set in Arizona, not on the lunar landscape.

The deniers insist that NASA went to extraordinary lengths and great expense to stage a moon landing in a film studio because it wanted to distract a public weary of the Vietnam War, or felt it had to beat the Soviet Union in the space race but feared it didn't have the technology to win the space race.

Or maybe the US space agency headed to the studio because it was cheaper and less risky than flying to the moon, the deniers have also said.