Mike, thanks for posting a great show. Now I wonder what the conspiracy theorists who insist we never went to the moon are going to make of the video of the lander and rover and tracks on the moon, right where they should be. I will watch with interest.

There are very few disputers left today questioning whether the the Moon landings were fake.
I think those people who disputed the Moon landings 40 years ago because, their mindset was, that it was a physical impossibility to ever reach the moon, let alone place anything on its surface.
Also interesting is those same people, never queried or questioned the fact that two massive eight wheeled Russian
Lunahkods were trundling around the Moon back in 1970, sending back pictures.
Nobody ever said they were faked.
They rushed around the Moons surface at a breakneck speed covering some ten miles of distance, before they overheated and stopped.
Incidentally, when NASA's LRO found the Apollo 17,...It also found and photographed the Lunohkod 2, where it had stopped trying to dig itself out of a crater, 39 years previously.
Its Laser reflectors were so clean and in such good condition that NASA still uses them monthly to check the ever increasing distances in millimeters, as the Moon receeds from us.

Its the earlier Lunohkod I, laser reflectors that are being used by NASA..

http://www.gizmag.com/nasa-finds-lost-soviet-lunar-rover/15382/

Lunahkods were trundling around the Moon back in 1970, sending back pictures.

Minor correction, that was around 1980. Of course I don't recall that here in the USA there was a whole lot said about them. After all they were Russian, not American.

They were still impressive. In fact I have a picture of one on my computer desktop.

Bill Gill

Mike Kremer reply to Bill Gill.
I was working in the US and Canada from 1955 until 1975 (wonderful countries-both)
I think you are correct, very little if nothing, was ever mentioned in the US press about the Russian Lunahkov I Moon landing. I dont ever remember its mention in the press at that time. But it was in 1970.
But there was a huge technical and political competition in the Space Race ever since the Russians launched the first animal, the dog LAIKA into space to orbit the Earth hundreds of times.
That was back in 1957,....and it certainly did make the Americans sit up and take notice. My US employers at that time suggested to us/me that we should stock up on tinned food from the Supermarket, and store it in a garage or in our cars,
...ready to move out....should the 'beeps' increase or stop.
Yes there was quite a bit of paranoia going on for a few days,
over the orbit of Laika and what else the Russkies might send up to fly over the USA.
Once the American SurveyorI landed upon the moon in 1966, with
President J.F Kennedy blessing, things normalized somewhat.

Of course Surveyor I, back in 1966 was a fixture, having no movement, so it was no wonder the Lunahkod, the first remote controlled vehicle to land and move on another world was under reported by the Americans, four years later in 1970.
After Surveyor the World swiftly aknowledged that the US had caught up, surpassed, and won the Space Race.

One interesting fact I do remember at the time, was the Russian Embassy presenting one of LAIKA's puppys to Pres: John F Kennedy, who accepted the little mutt graciously. Hmmmm??