You're correct that the individuals responsible for faking space travel have much to lose.
That admission took you long enough.
For the fakery narrative to make sense, they must similarly have a lot to gain.
And they have, back in the days of the space race. Now they're just living out the consequences of a poor decision of the past.
2. The most obvious reason I can see to fake space travel in the 50s and 60s is to prove to the USSR that you can nuke them with ICBMs. If you believe that the USSR has ICBMs, and if you believe that you never will, then it makes some sense to try and fake it to maintain deterrence.
Fair enough. I disagree, since ICBMs have nothing to do with
sustained space flight, but okay.
3. If you don't actually have ICBMs, and if ICBMs are critical to your national interests, then it doesn't make any sense to keep pretending to go to space once you've 'proven' to the USSR that you can. It doesn't get you any more hard power. All it does is increase your exposure to the risk of getting caught. There's no reason for fake space stations and fake Hubble and fake planetary probes and fake weather satellites etc.
Under your (invalid) assumption, perhaps.
You've argued that you do it for something like 'reputation' or 'prestige,' but those aren't very valuable to foreign affairs. Why risk exposure for them?
Because our dealings with the likes of the United States are quite different from those with China. Among other things, the United States are respected as one of the world's leading countries (if not simply
the leading country) in science and technology, as well as the ideology they so actively promote. The ideology bit is already plunging like crazy, what with recent (and not-so-recent) news of the USA ignoring human rights or basic diplomatic protocol. Especially now, they are in a position where they cannot stop easily; although it's worth noting that they've been trying, by continuously cutting NASA's budget. Eventually, the space craze will just quietly die off. They don't
want to risk exposure. They simply
have to do so to avoid blowing their cover while quietly closing down the whole business.
4. Hard power drives international relations, not 'reputation' or 'prestige.'
Which is exactly why nations like India are respected, eh? You can say "hard power" as many times as you want, and it will still not be the sole (or even the most important) factor driving diplomacy.
The second says that the USSR lied about the landing location so they could say they set a world record. It doesn't say that they flight was fake.
Um, yeah. If mainstream media reported that space flight was faked, I don't think we'd be having this discussion. Then again, you don't read the news and rely on being "well-informed" instead, so perhaps we would be. In either case, I wouldn't be the one in the minority.
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