Actually, my dad worked on the mission in Cocoa Beach. The real problem was that they sent the lander to Mars, not the moon. The real concern at the time was the Tycho Monolith, remember, so although the mission was originally intended for the moon, JFK authorized some changes to suit McNamara's DoD. Big change, yes, but obviously necessary for Homeland Security.

You're right that some of the photos were doctored -- good work! The primary purpose of all of the Photoshop work was to remove the red hues from the ground. Some of the backgrounds were reused, of course. That wasn't uncommon back then. And of course the constellations that are thousands of light years away would have looked distorted, so they had to be removed.

But you're wrong about the framing and focus problem. While it turns out to be impossible for a geometrically-inclined engineer to aim a camera without a viewfinder, NASA was able to work with Polaroid to invent a fixed focus lens, which they later commercialized as the Brownie.

Great research! That davesweb guy does good work. It's too bad that the govt can't acknowledge the hard work folks like him have put in. It's just still too sensitive. My Dad never should have told me, but you know how people get when they're old.

Oh, this goes with saying I guess, but they never did find the monolith. So when Bush gets his colony on Mars obviously that will be priority number one.