NASA erased the original Apollo 11 moon landing tape

Today NPR ran a story about the missing moon landing tapes. It turned out that NASA erased those tapes. The reason for doing that was ridiculous: NASA ran out of magnetic tapes! What? Are you nuts? Can anyone believe this?

In the afternoon, in "All Things Considered", NPR reported another story about the Apollo 11 mission. It reported that a desert region in Flagstaff Arizona was the training ground for the astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission. In fact that region was meticulously created to mimic the terrain on Moon's surface. Here is a quote from the story:

"Near Flagstaff, Ariz., are fields of volcanic cinders, the result of eruptions about the year 1065. The cinders provided excellent material to re-create the lunar surface. The result of this was an accurate replica of a section of the moon's Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed."

If you put the two stories together, what can you make of them? Did moon landing really occur? Was it just the result of cold-war propaganda?

Hmm. That would be something to think about. Maybe those crazy conspiracy theories aren't too crazy after all.