Were the moon landings faked?

There is no possible way that the moon expeditions could have been faked

Question: Were the moon landings faked?
Position1 of 2›: The Apollo missions were not faked
Argument1 of 3›: There is no possible way that the moon expeditions could have been faked

If you study the circumstances surrounding the moon landing, there is plausible evidence that it happened. Being a historical event, it was recorded and tested by scientists and historians.

The argument

A lot of people were involved in the space missions, so there is a lot of evidence from them that they actually happened. Several missions made up the Apollo missions, (including the ones that did not reach the moon). If the plan was to beat former Soviet Union and for the US to be the first to send a man on the moon then why take the trouble of sending five missions after the first successful one. Also why would the Soviet Union acknowledge Apollo's success if they thought the US cheated. They would have denounced it if they did not believe it.

Context

As in most discussions, one can consider the opposite thesis (fake) on the basis of simple reasoning

Premises

[P1]So many people were involved in the Apollo missions that they left a great deal of evidence the landings really happened. [P2] If the goal was merely to beat the Soviet Union by faking one landing, there would have been no reason to mount five further missions. [P3] The Soviet Union, a rival, acknowledged Apollo's success rather than denouncing it as a fraud. [C] Therefore, there is no possible way the moon expeditions could have been faked, so the Apollo missions were not faked.

Counter-arguments

Only a limited number of people involved in the program knew it was a fake. The majority of the people involved believe in the mission in good faith.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The number of participants is not itself evidence, and the reply on record is that most could have acted in good faith while a few knew otherwise; the premise needs what those people left behind — the retroreflectors still used for laser ranging by observatories in several countries, the samples analysed in laboratories worldwide — rather than a headcount. [Rejecting P2] Asking why five further missions were flown is an argument about motive rather than about evidence, and a deception could in principle be repeated, so the premise cannot establish that none occurred. [Rejecting P3] Soviet acknowledgement is decisive only because the USSR was independently tracking the flights with its own instruments; stated as bare acknowledgement it invites the reply that a rival might stay silent for reasons of its own, and the premise omits the tracking that makes the point hold.