These people would only need to be given Top Secret security clearance and let in on the fact that the certain NASA project they're working on is a fraud. If they talk then they know that the government will come down on them hard and send them to Guantanamo military prison for undisclosed state crimes.
But there are still hundreds of people that would be required to be given this clearance.
These people can just be led to believe that they're servicing regular military reconnaissance drones.
There is a difference between an unmanned drone which is fairly normal military technology and the stratellites that would be required to maintain the illusion of a worldwide satellite network. There is also the support staff for the commercial satellites that are in existence.
Nope.
So the astronomers that are making observations don't need to be involved? They aren't comparing information and discovering the gears? They aren't bouncing lasers off reflectors on the moon? They aren't making observations of nova, comets and other cosmological phenomenon.
Nope.
But when we were talking about particle accelerators, it has been said...
What about particle colliders? These things are built flat right? With the LHC does that mean we can't see the end because the light has curved up? By end I mean before it curves around. Apparently it is supposed to appear straight
These don't exist. They are part of the conspiracy. Imagine how much money people could make from funding intended to build a particle accelerator!
That would mean that there are a lot of people that would be working at a non-functioning facility that would have to be "in on the secret."
The USA pretty much puts whoever they want into positions of power in foreign nations anyway.
Because the US has so much influence in the internal politics of countries like Iran, China or France?
NASA hired some programmers to create "simulation data generators" for "testing purposes." Then NASA simply uses their tools with a few modifications to feed the data out into the real world as legit.
There still have to be the people that decide what theories that this "simulation" data is going to be feeding the world. It all has to have a consistent internal structure that maintains the illusion that you want to maintain. You have to have programmers that can update the "simulations" to maintain currency of the data, error checkers, people that distribute this information to the scientists, people to repress real world observations that contradict your world view.
Astronauts.
All astronauts need to know is that they're doing a service to their country by perpetuating NASA's fraud. And if they talk, they know what can come down on them (in addition to knowing that no one would believe them and any News agency who published something about it would be purged by threatening government lawyers almost immediately).
The Movie crews would be given security clearance and led to believe that they're filming simulation data.
and not notice when their precise production is shown on TV and then say something? China couldn't even have a little girl lip sync during the opening ceremonies without people noticing and commenting.
The management for most manufacturing divisions within NASA would only need to know that they need to build a certain part with a certain blueprint they were given. They have no knowledge of the full picture.
I am not talking just about manufacturing. There is are the pure sciences divisions, publicity, the fake pictures and movie production divisions, fake archives divisions, real archives division, etc.