"Stu Gotz" <stu03@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:stu03-E3A4B9.14521416022004@news.verizon.net...
| A week before Apollo 11 was launched, NASA launched an
| unmanned probe which was placed in lunar orbit.

No.

TETR-A was launched December 13, 1967 into a 92-minute orbit (287x490 km).
It deorbited and burned up on April 28, 1968.  It had nothing to do with the
Apollo 11 mission more than a year later.

| It was explained that the probe was for the purpose of
| training the Mission Control folks.

True, but not for the purpose of training MSFN station operators, many of
whose dishes can't even track fast enough to follow TETR-A.  It was intended
to train personnel in Houston.  For training the outlying stations the
Surveyor craft were used.

| The same probe could have easily been used to relay radio signals from
| the Apollo craft which was in low earth orbit.

TETR-A was also in low earth orbit.  Not only would it utterly fail to fool
any ground stations into thinking its signals were coming from the moon, it
wouldn't have had line of sight for the Apollo spacecraft allegedly in earth
orbit.

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