I honestly don't care if he hypes it for laughs, cold hard cash, or because he believes it; as obsessions go this one strikes me as harmless.
You do make a good point about conspiracy types, but I don't think it's necessarily his responsibility to educate everyone out of that. The best way to let the air out of that particular balloon is to send a small rover to the moon and land it near the original Apollo site, and then just drive it around beaming back pictures of stuff on the moon and attractive hi-res pics of Earth on a daily basis.
Does it break any new scientific ground? Nope. Will it do wonders for public awareness of/engagement with science? Hell yes.
You do make a good point about conspiracy types, but I don't think it's necessarily his responsibility to educate everyone out of that. The best way to let the air out of that particular balloon is to send a small rover to the moon and land it near the original Apollo site, and then just drive it around beaming back pictures of stuff on the moon and attractive hi-res pics of Earth on a daily basis.
Does it break any new scientific ground? Nope. Will it do wonders for public awareness of/engagement with science? Hell yes.