Again, you've glossed over the fact that if the US had never gone to the Moon, the Soviets would've been making it very clear. They obviously had good reason to

Again, you've glossed over the fact that if the US had never gone to the Moon, the Soviets would've been making it very clear. They obviously had good reason to closely monitor the landings so they could catch the US in any lies and embarrass them. The landings being faked requires a conspiracy to have lasted all this time, without ever being written down, between countries that were one serious misunderstanding away from ending human civilization. As for cost and 'easier', the Artemis lander programs are cheaper than what Apollo cost, and they have far higher requirements than just being the bare minimum to keep 3 carefully selected specimens of humanity alive for a few days. Hell, Starship is supposed to have an entire infirmary. That is to say that it would indeed be a lot easier if we were just aiming to land a few people in a can for a few days and were completely willing to risk their potential inability to return. We've made the requirements much harder, so the project is appropriately harder.