an ignorance of optics

As a professional hi-end computer animator in the 1990s and 2000s, I can assure you, I'm very aware of physics, optics, and ray tracing, among other rendering techniques.

Your simulation link is interesting in that it's NOT in the shade yet it also creates a top-down specular on the astronaut's heel that is actually plausible, in both of their recreations, unlike the original in shade I mentioned. Utilizing fake CGI doesn't make it real. (Plus, the robotic gestures are unnaturally stiff and even obvious in the space suit, as is too often the case with CGI by technicians rather than performers/artists.)

Instead of ray tracing, I would have been more impressed if, in the shot that I'd mentioned, they'd back-engineered a chrome ball, like the one placed before James Earl Jones in 2004 when I animated a computer monitor interacting with him for a Verizon TV commercial. He said, "Are you going to read my fortune?" We were too stunned and star struck to respond to Darth Vader's deep voice.

Granted that I'm no radiation expert, but there are countless others who are that say it would have been impossible for film to endure the trip without issues. But I can say that it's also impossible to shoot dozens of perfect photos from the middle of your chest in awkward suits without a bunch of duds. FWIW, we're not talking about composite space shots, we're talking about candid astronauts - and I've not even mentioned the "+" arguments that have their one flurry of pros and cons.

I gave you breadcrumbs for easily found stuff I was too lazy to look up, and even bothered to collect some stuff from past conversations.

Yes, there is a vast history of scandalous events revealed by leaks. People say the government is made of blundering idiots, and maybe they want you to think they're all clumsy and inept so the non-idiots can proceed without interference under plausible deniability. So what of their big missions that remain hidden without leaks? We will never know how many or how few of those too-big-to-be-secret operations managed to stay quiet.

There may have been some kind of landing, but the images and videos are bunk, and they've destroyed all the evidence. They lied about 9/11, climate change, COVID, elections, economies, wars, and everything else. Why are you married to the idea that there couldn't be a Moon landing scam?

Instead of being an evidence-free nay-sayer starting from your predetermined opinion talking about my ass, do some legit skeptical research. Don't seek to believe or disbelieve - just look.