Just why? Why would the whole crew agree to fake their own deaths?
In terms of the reporters trying to get the astronauts to 'swear on the Bible that they'd really been in space'...that proved nothing. The reporters were just being annoying and harassing. If some reporter came to me hassling me to swear that I actually did something that I'd done, as if it were in question, trying to question my validity, I too would kick them out of my house, office, run from them and if they still persisted maybe even punch them in the nose. I was questioning this report until the harassing reporters - what I saw in body language on the astronauts was consistent with the reaction of honorable men pushed to far by "Enquirer' type reporters just trying to stir up controversy.