No way it was a hoax... the conspiracy theorists just had to debunk it because there was nothing much else doing at the time... and they had to discredit something of major importance to derive their 5 minutes of fame/get their names in the history books as well.
Some folks can't believe the Gov't. at all, and that's their problem. As far as I'm concerned, some of the greatest heroes (a deflated word, nowadays) this planet has ever known climbed on top of monster rockets armed with computers with less power than pda's (which they frequently had to reprogram to work) and rode those huge, untried roman candles into the unknown.
Stand up on your hind legs and salute them. G-d knows they deserve it!
I'm with you, Doc, those astronauts (all astronauts) are the bravest people on Earth. The fact that they boarded rockets into what was the greatest unknown of all commands the greatest respect and admiration we can show.