Can you substantiate the claim that it would be more expensive to make this:
Out of sheet metal and tin foil than to actually make one that works, send it into space, land it softly on the moon, and then come back perfectly unharmed?
Making a fake lunar lander is a lot cheaper then making a real one and putting it on the Moon, but that's not the only thing involved. Faking the Apollo mission would require things like making fake Moon rocks that fool universities, faking images from space like the blue marble, making and launching a mock up Saturn V, doing it all 5 more times, making a real Saturn V to put on display on the Kenedy Space Center, making a real lunar lander and command module to put on display at the Smithsonian air and space museum (which I have personally seen), and of course the bribes which don't always work in real life.
A single Saturn V costs about 6 billion dollars which is only enough money to bribe 6,000 people with $1,000,000 and bribing just the 400,000 people working at the space center would mean that the funding given to NASA for a single Saturn V would only pay each person $15,000. NASA worked with over 40,000 private contractors and many of their employees would have to be in on it like the people at Boeing who built the first stage. NASA wouldn't make any money at all faking space travel, in fact they would loose a ton of money.
The probelem with saying that bribes are the reason people are kept quiet is that bribing doesn't always work. I don't know about you but if someone came up to me sating that the Earth is flat, space travel isn't real, and they pay me $1,000,000 per year to keep quiet then I would turn it down and blow the whistle. Some people cannot be bought which is why even 100 people being in on a conspiracy is incredibly risky because not one of them could be soneone who can't be bought. It's also worth noting that NASA employees don't live in mansions and drive fancy cars, so clearly they have not been receiving milions of dollars under the table.
Are you saying we can't produce fake moon rocks for relatively cheap?
Again, the peak of NASA's workforce was at this time, and they've obviously learned from their mistake.
I really do not believe anyone who says that a million dollars a year is not enough to keep quiet.
You can pay me over $100,000 to keep anything a secret, and rest assured I'll do it.
I understand that money isn't so important to people who don't need it to survive yet (like yourself), but for the rest of us honest, hardworking people, a million dollars a year would be plenty.
Obviously they can't be buying mansions and Ferraris, as this would make the whole thing extremely obvious.
The money goes to support them and their families for the rest of their lives, and even their children after they are dead and gone.
If you ask me, that's worth it.