What a topic.
No, I did not participate directly in Apollo 11, but I participated in spaceflight.
As to proof of Apollo landings, what can I offer?
I watched the last flight (Apollo 17) from the closest point to the launch pad as a guest. My instructor in college had received tickets for our class for teaching the same course In celestial mechanics to the astronaut corps, including those on board and who preceded them (the next time I would get nearly that close was the second launch of Shuttle Endeavour). It was a dark and (admittedly) moonless night where you could clearly see the Pleiades and the launch had a false start. After a hold it went up so thunderously I held my ears and struggled not to close my eyes. I watched the Saturn first stage yellow flame fade in brilliance to a yellow star and then watched the two subsequent LOX hydrogen stages burn a steamy white. Practically, the whole insertion into orbit was visible. I have seen and talked to two of the crewmembers subsequently. One of them I was introduced to during a conference on planetary science. A number of us were looking at an exhibit depicting the Lunar Rover used on his flight when he happened to walk up behind us. Beside being an Apollo astronaut, Harrison Schmitt was a geologist.
As time went by I met and worked with other astronauts in day to day work. A few times I had a microphone passed on to me as the next speaker, including from one of the Apollo 11 crew. Aldrin and Collins were not as reclusive as Armstrong.
Following Apollo 17 ( within a year or so), I worked with people who participated in the moon missions while we were working to design and develop Space Shuttle engineering models. Some of this work for was derivative: adapting Apollo guidance, navigation and control algorithms to model the Space Shuttle's flight. Legacy operations for the big coverup, I guess.
I watched the continuous live coverage of the moonwalks. Apollo 11 was obviously grainy, but Apollo 15 definitely was not. The initial flight and landing as cinema did not compare very well with the contemporary 2001 A Space Odyssey, but later Apollos such as 15 gave the film a run for its money. And if they were films, the features went on for days - not hours. Does anyone remember press conferences in flight where the astronauts floated around the cabin as they fielded questions? A few weeks after the Apollo 15 crew was done they ended up as guests at the engineering school I attended for the football homecoming. A number of the Apollo astronauts lived in my neighborhood when I lived in Houston. They also wrote memoirs about their training and flight...
As was pointed out, the sites of the moon landings can be seen from lunar orbiters. Upper stages of the Saturn V that supported the flights, some of them have escaped earth's gravity but return in periodic orbits to be observed by astronomers, not long mistaken for near earth asteroids since they have a reflectance typical of titanium oxide ( white paint).
Yes, I suppose there are significant gaps in my personal proof of lunar landings. I wasn't walking behind the Apollo 11 astronauts, though a number of my neighbors and colleagues did so from mission control stations that were long in use for other space flights.
As to whether there is any equivalence in believing this to accepting the JW belief system, I cannot say. I never believed the JW system. It just intruded into my life within the last decade. It forced me to examine things I never bothered with before - and I have shared my observations on this forum.
As to whether I have ever been fooled by belief systems that were not true, the answer is "yes", of course. But most of them have been easier to shuck off. Probably there are some more that I am as yet unaware of. Fortunately, most of these things start out as mysteriously not well explained and that there is so much more to be understood.
On the other hand, when I consider the science fiction that I read as a child or adolescent: about space travel, about planets around other stars, about the nature of the moon's other side, the surface of Mars, the moons of the outer planets and the asteroids ( especially Ceres), I have lived in an age of exploration that has not done so badly about giving shape to those dreamscapes. ... I am thankful to God for that.
