Good point. But then again, when it's basic logic at stake, that can be done with just a brain, you know? Some things can be done with an Internet connection, a browser that can visit Nasa.gov, and a functioning brain that operates on logic.
Not everything must be done from zero, trusting no one. We trust all sorts of things every day. The only issue is filtering for biases, judging credibility and authenticity, etc.
But you can get a lot of that without busting out the camera yourself.

We're not following the false philosophers that say you can't trust anyone, you must build up science "from zero" all by yourself. Personal experience is NOT the only source of truth. Even science doesn't work that way...

Building off the work of others, and having human faith in others, happens *all the time* and by everybody.

The moon is one of those things that calls out for a telescope, yes. I hope you understood what I'm getting at.
For example, nothing existing in the 1970's allowed men to carry around, on their back, a device allowing them to stay cool in a spacesuit in an environment that is 230 degrees F, as the Moon is during the daytime.
Making the spacesuit white (the color that absorbs the least, or reflects the most) would NOT be enough. 230F is 230F. And they were getting full sunlight with no atmosphere to block any of the infrared.

It would be easier to wear a long sleeve white shirt with white pants and be "just fine" trekking across the Sahara desert. At least the desert is only 130 or so. You would still die of dehydration and heat exhaustion!

I know enough about A/C technology to know how expensive it is, electrically. A portable battery like a 20 AH Bioenno wouldn't cut it. Oh wait, we didn't even have Lithium Ion or LiFePO batteries back then. Just the old fashioned lead-acid kind.

Those are the kind of brain exercises I'm talking about. Nothing NASA (or reality) made known to-date has sufficiently explained away this problem. So we still have an outstanding problem.
In other words, until NASA releases info that "yes, we have had personal fusion reactors weighing just 3 lbs since the 1960s" I'm going to be skeptical.

With regard to telescopes:

Are you primarily interested in viewing objects on land (or sea) rather than night sky? If so, you are probably looking for a decent astronomical refracting telescope or spotting scope. These are the ones that have lenses (like a spyglass) rather than mirrors. The best ones can be very expensive, and the cheapest ones can be pretty awful, but there are plenty of mid-range ones that work reasonably well. You probably need a lens diameter (aperture) from 50mm-90mm. Refractors over 100 mm diameter usually get VERY big, heavy, and expensive.

If you are primarily interested in the night sky, your biggest bang for the buck money-wise is definitely a Newtonian reflector, especially one on a Dobsonian mount. These use mirrors; 150 mm (6 in.) and 200 mm (8 inch) mirror diameters are good sizes, and you can even buy ones larger than 12 inches diameter. However, unlike a refractor, a reflector is typically not practical for viewing land or sea objects during the daytime. 

Any astronomical telescope (refractor or reflector) displays the image upside-down, as the extra lenses that turn the image right-side up absorb light and could make an object in the night sky look dimmer. However, you can get special devices (a prism or a type of "star diagonal") that reverse this and make the image look right-side up in a refractor, which would allow you to use it for land objects. Spotting scopes always show an image right-side up, just like a pair of binoculars. Depending on the design though, spotting scopes may not have the light gathering and magnification power of an astronomical telescope.

As far as where to find one, there are many companies out there. Orion Telescopes and Binoculars is a big one, and sometimes you can find nice used equipment in the classified section of astronomy forums like this one: https://www.cloudynights.com/

You have no argument from me on that score, the moon landings were one of the biggest hoaxes perpetrated on the world, ever. BTW: you make an excellent point about A/C and the batteries.

I'm just not buying that the moon is solid.  Professional Astronomers, making official observations to the Royal Astronomical Society, have reported stars passing into the darkened portion of the moon and yet being visible somehow "through" the moon.  There was a scientist in the 1960s who insisted that he had proven that the moon is made of plasma and not rock, and that it was "more than a theory" but pretty much provable fact.