OHHHH, so this is why Google has moon craters as their logo today....

Sweet!! Congratulations to Neil and Buzz!!!!

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"If it's planned, it's boring." - Freddie Mercury

Oh look! The craters spell Google.

Niki my understanding of the dangers of the Van Allen belt are for objects that inhabit them for long periods of time. What the VA belts (yes it's more than 1 thing,) are: They are doughnut shaped spaces where charged particles are trapped by the Earth's (or most likely any large body, ie other planets,) magnetic field. The vast majority of these particles are low energy particles, which actually can't penetrate the skin of the astronauts. Given the quick passage through the belt, a little less than an hour, the danger to the astronauts and to the electronics of the ship were minimal. It really didn't have a lot to do with clever trajectories or anything like that.

In fact the vessel itself, or rather it's electronics were in more danger of damage than the astronauts.

However, the technology of the time was a lot less delicate, and a lot less sensitive than what is used currently. By the nature of how this stuff was produced it was less efficient than current electronics, and a side effect of this is that it was more robust. The irony of our advances in efficiency, and miniaturization, is that modern electronics are much more susceptible to damage in the van Allen belt than the older stuff.

Put simply the radiation from the van Allen belt poses a much greater threat to modern electronics, and also to craft that spend longer durations inside it. The danger is more to satellites, or to maybe an orbiting platform that would be meant to permanently reside there.

I think the moonshot is a case of ignorance being bliss. I think , justifiably that all the fear of damage from the Van Allen belt is all about erring on the side of caution. Given the massive amount of work devoted to crew safety, if 40 years ago they would have known what they know now, I am not sure they would have justified the risk.

I have yet to see any argument against the moon landing that isn't easy to debunk, and have yet to see even one convincing argument to say it didn't happen. Given the technological marvels we see every day, it doesn't seem in any way out of line to me.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.