Anyone with a brain, common sense, or training in Science or Statistics would tell you: you throw it out as an aberration.
Not for this
topic! Quite the
contrary! Anyone with "
training in Science or Statistics" should quickly "tell you" that "
throw[ing]
it out" instead shows readers
how little you really learned from "training in [...] Statistics". That's because it's highly important to understand the relationship between statistical
samples, the (real-world-by-definition)
populations from which they're taken, and the statistical methods that apply to them--and those that do
not.
When you have a single datum which is ridiculously above the norm, and has never been even close to repeated, you cast it out as an anomaly or an aberration.
What's with your "
single datum [...]
never been even
close to repeated"?
The U.S.A. completed flights at least as far as
Lunar orbit on at least 8 occasions: Apollo 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Plus (I think) another for testing undocking & rendezvous between the
command module and
Lunar-excursion module. Of those identified by number, 6 successfully landed "on the Moon" and were "returned safely to Earth".
It's a law of experimental science, as well as Statistics, that when you have a far-and-above exception to 99% of the data, it must be considered an aberration to be dismissed. I didn't come up with this argument, but man is it rock-solid and the most compelling argument why the Moon Landings were a hoax. The truth of it resonated with me, and burrowed deep into my brain.
"
Rock-solid"?
Really, now?
Anyone with "
training in Science or Statistics" should recognize that the distances travelled during individual flights in the "Space Race" and for subsequent "
Moon Landings" are
obviously not simple data-points [
#] for which it's valid to apply your "
law of
experimental science, as well as
Statistics" whose indiscriminate use you're promoting.
We have years of history to prove it now--that the so-called moon landings in the early 1970's never happened.
Fascinating! Being determined to use historical records not to prove the real occurrence (thus reality) of disputed events, but instead, to
prove the
nonoccurrence (thus
unreality) of those same events!
You're telling me no other country has managed to go there in almost 50 years?
Yes, that
is what I'm telling you, as confirmed by the intervening "
years of history".
There are a lot of advanced countries that should have the technology to do so [...]. Russia, Japan, China, Europe just for starters.
You have invoked "
years of history", but seem completely unaware of what "
history" shows as having happened during those "
years". You've completely
failed to present any "history" that was relevant to the "Space Race" and "Moon Landings". Perhaps that apparent ignorance should be expected from someone who wasn't born until roughly a
decade after the return of Apollo 17 (Dec. 19, 1972) ended the flights of Project Apollo--
prematurely at that.
Each of the "
advanced countries" or regions you listed has made its own decisions on
outer space while experiencing changes in political or technical leadership, wrestling with competing or contrary goals of opposition parties or factions, enjoying increased national prosperity or enduring national deprivation, benefitting from technical discoveries or developments, carrying on despite the loss of key people, and
sometimes often unpredictable changes in national priorities.
You do understand that for a
democratic republic to participate in a "Space Race" or strive for "Moon Landings" ultimately requires the
assent of "we the people", don't you? The representative office-holders in a republic are really keen on continuing to enjoy their perks of power by continuing to be reëlected. They can only survive whatever is their next election by being attentive to their constituents, and recognizing,
i.a., when their support has dwindled to election-jeopardizing levels for any national program that was once too popular to risk opposing, e.g.,
exploration or colonization of
outer space.
Not even the exalted leader of a 20th-Century
communist dictatorship had the autocratic power wielded by the Russian
tsar of any earlier century, not even those communist leaders who combined the 2 top offices of
premier and
general secretary of the Party. The judgmental attention of high-ranking Party leaders didn't end when they elevated such a man to either top office. The Party repeatedly demonstrated that altho' they can "giveth great power", they themselves reserve the power to "taketh it away"[†].
So what does the "
history" of the 20th Century tell us about what happened to
exploration or colonization of
outer space? Stay tuned to this
topic [
*].
-------
Note
#: It's valid for the kind of "
experimental science" in which the
sampling is, e.g., counts of inanimate objects, measurements of sedated wildlife, or periodic output from sensors (e.g., wind velocity).
Note †: Nikita Khruschëv, e.g., was fortunate to be the first combined
premier and
general secretary who was removed from office simply by being involuntarily retired, instead of by being αssαssιnαtҽd.
Note
*: I already have written a 1st draft of my implied future posting.