The Apollo 11 Moon landing in July 1969 marked an incredible achievement in human history, blending ingenuity, engineering prowess, and scientific advancement. It was an event the entire globe anticipated eagerly. In 2021, we commemorated 52 years since that groundbreaking moment. Over the following three years, only a dozen astronauts explored the lunar surface across six missions.
At its height, the Apollo program engaged more than 400,000 individuals and collaborated with approximately 20,000 businesses and universities. The total expenditure, adjusted for 2019, reached roughly $145 billion.
Why did we stop going to the moon?
After all the time and money invested, why did our interest in the moon fade so quickly, and what truly caused us to stop going? Today, Apollo is celebrated as a landmark moment in scientific progress and technological achievement. In a little over 60 years, we transitioned from the Wright brothers’ maiden flight to Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface.
The Apollo program wasn’t just the pinnacle of the space race; it was also the final major manned adventure in a century where we conquered towering mountains, explored the deepest ocean trenches, and ventured to the farthest corners of Earth.
41% of people said that the Apollo program was worth it
As time has passed, public approval of the Apollo missions has steadily risen. In a 1979 NBC poll, 41% of respondents believed Apollo was worthwhile. By 1999, this figure had climbed to 55%.
In today’s unpredictable world, the allure of Apollo and our nostalgic appreciation for that era, when everything seemed possible, have only grown. The recent loss of original pioneers, like Neil Armstrong, the first person on the moon, and Gene Cernan, the last, has further amplified this sentiment.
The Apollo project championed by Kennedy
But this sentiment wasn’t always prevalent. When President Kennedy advocated for Apollo, many scientists were against it, arguing it would divert funds from other projects. Military leaders opposed it as well, fearing it would pull talented scientists away from aerospace and missile technology.
Community leaders also voiced concerns, believing the enormous budget could be better used for education, poverty alleviation, and healthcare.
Many reasons why we stopped going to the Moon
There are several reasons why we stopped going to the moon. The increasing involvement in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 and the resulting budget cuts played a role. The gradual easing of the Cold War and the growing belief that funds could be better utilized on Earth rather than in space also influenced this decision.
However, two reasons overshadowed all others. To understand them, we should revisit Kennedy’s speech to Congress in May 1961 and the context in which it was made.
The Sputnik achieved impressive milestones in space
In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States during a time when the Soviets were achieving significant space milestones. They took the lead with Sputnik in 1957, the first satellite to orbit Earth.
They orbited the moon and photographed its far side with Luna 3 in 1959. Then, on April 12, 1961, they put the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit. These accomplishments were major propaganda wins for the Soviets, capturing the attention of many Americans.
Who was the first American in space?
In the West, it truly seemed like the U.S. was losing the space race and, by extension, the ideological battle, even though Alan Shepard became the first American in space just three weeks later. Kennedy needed to act swiftly. On April 20, 1961, he sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking him to identify space programs that could help the U.S. catch up and surpass the Soviets. After consulting with NASA, Johnson returned with three recommendations, all involving the early Apollo program.
Apollo, envisioned in 1960 during Eisenhower’s tenure, was intended as a successor to Project Mercury. Unlike Mercury’s single astronaut, Apollo would carry three and feature much larger rocket stages, which eventually became the Saturn V, with a range extending to the moon. However, at that time, Apollo lacked clear objectives.
A Manned Orbit Around the Moon
The first proposal was to build an orbital space station, but NASA believed the Soviets’ advantage in heavy rockets would enable them to achieve this in the near future. The second option was a manned lunar orbit. Again, NASA thought the Soviets could achieve this, as they had already orbited the moon with their unmanned Luna 3 probe, making a human-crewed mission a plausible next step.
The third proposal was a manned moon landing. NASA thought this would be challenging for the Soviets, who had not demonstrated any intention of pursuing it.
A Manned Moon Landing
The moon landing was projected far enough into the future that the U.S. would likely achieve it first. Initially, Kennedy was skeptical of a human-crewed moon landing because of the substantial cost, which was estimated at nine billion dollars over five years, up to 1966—equivalent to roughly 70 billion dollars in 2018. However, it was the only option with the prestige and impact Kennedy sought. It was ambitious and would signal to the world that America was a leader in space and technology.
Contrary to popular belief, Kennedy wasn’t a passionate space enthusiast, even though he spearheaded the Apollo initiative. In a meeting transcript between him and NASA Administrator James Webb from April 1962, which was released in 2001, Kennedy explicitly stated that space was not a primary interest for him.
Putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade
Kennedy pursued the moon landing primarily because of Soviet advancements, including Yuri Gagarin’s flight a few weeks earlier. On May 25, 1961, he announced the goal of putting a man on the moon by the decade’s end.
It’s also been suggested that this goal was intended to compensate for the embarrassment of the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, which happened during his administration.
When he addressed Congress on May 25, 1961, saying, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth,” he meant it literally.
The Apollo Project was a political goal
The mission aimed to have a single astronaut land on the moon, plant the U.S. flag, and then return home. For Kennedy, Apollo was a political decision meant to achieve a political goal: to show the world and developing nations, which were still determining their future political paths, that the technological and organizational power of the United States, and by extension, democratic capitalism, was superior to Soviet-style communism.
Although the mission was a clear race to outpace the Soviets, Kennedy attempted to back out of his commitment by twice offering to share the moon mission with them—first in a private meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in June 1961 and later during a United Nations speech in September 1963.
Over time, Apollo was fleshed out
However, the Soviets declined the offer, and after Kennedy’s death, both sides dropped the proposal. It took the Soviets another three years to take their moon mission seriously, but by then, they had already fallen behind. Technical challenges with the N1 rocket delayed and ultimately ended their manned lunar ambitions. Over time, Apollo evolved from a single-person landing to a series of ten, becoming almost a living tribute to Kennedy after his assassination.
Apollo 1 accident
Even after the Apollo 1 disaster, which claimed the lives of three crew members during a pre-flight test, there was a steadfast determination to keep Kennedy’s vision alive. The incident underscored the risk of failure and highlighted that the astronauts were venturing into uncharted territory.
While most systems had been tested and previous missions had orbited the moon, developing the lunar lander took longer than anticipated. The landing of Apollo 11 and the subsequent ascent from the lunar surface were aspects that couldn’t be accurately simulated on Earth.
If Apollo 11 was stranded on the Moon
If something went wrong at that point, there was the genuine danger that the crew would be stranded on the moon. This set up Apollo 11 as the grand finale of the space race between the U.S. and the Soviets, with all the nail-biting moments right up until the end.
Although the Soviets tried to upstage Apollo by landing a remote-controlled Lunokhod rover on the moon in February of 1969, the rocket failed at launch. But this was kept a secret for many years, and it would be February 1970 when the replacement Lunakhod caught one officially landed.
Apollo 11 put the US flag on the Moon
But Apollo 11 did make it to the moon, and after the crew landed and planted the U.S. flag on the lunar surface. They stayed for a total of 21 hours and 36 minutes before setting off and returning home safely, and that was it.
The race was won. The U.S. had done it, beaten the Soviets, and landed a man, or in this case two, on the moon and returned them safely home, just as Kennedy had stated of Congress back in 1961. Although there were nine more Apollo missions in the pipeline, Apollo 11 was the main goal.
All the missions after it effectively filled in the missing pieces to do the science and make use of massive infrastructure and investment had been made to get Apollo 11 to the lunar surface.
Apollo was a political project
However, Apollo was a political project that showcased the U.S.’s power and the free market system. There was no plan to carry the science on, colonize the moon, make a permanent lunar outpost, or even return to the moon, in fact, like so many other major events that have happened since there was no grand plan of what would happen after the initial Apollo missions.
This rather ill-defined conclusion to Apollo was pointed out at a time, but no one at the highest levels took much in the way of any action. After the initial adulation dies down, the dullness sets in even though more missions are planned. A been there, seen it, done it type of attitude becomes prevalent among the public.
What was front-page news worldwide relegated to the back pages or not even reported in many countries? Interest from both the public and the government drops dramatically, and the knives are out for NASA as budget cuts become ever deeper.
Cut back after Apollo 12
By January 1970, and after Apollo 12, NASA announced that it would cut back 50,000 more jobs from its 190,000-strong workforce, which was less than half of its 1960 high of 400,000. Apollo 20 would be canceled, and its Saturn 5 would be used to launch Skylab itself, made from the upper stages of a Saturn 5 rocket. Out of all the following missions, only Apollo 13 really stands out, but for all the wrong reasons. It brought back the drama of whether they or won’t make it.
Apollo 17 last one to the moon
There were calls to end the program after Apollo 13, but NASA didn’t want to go out on a failure, so it was announced that they would be cutting out missions 18 and 19 and condensing their most important goals, Apollo 17, which would become the last one.
With this ending, NASA was left in a strange place. Skylab was a stopgap measure to make a space station but using leftover Saturn 5 parts, and the shuttle was all that was left of a space transportation system that would have taken men back to the moon and onto Mars.
It would now be used only for low-earth orbit missions. Basically, it would be a space truck moving men and equipment to and from orbit. But neither Skylab nor the shuttle had the wow factor of the Apollo 11 mission.
The much hoped-for giant leap for humankind will be limited to a few hundred miles above the Earth, and as such, we no longer need massive rockets capable of returning to the moon all the infrastructure to build and launch them. The moon became a footnote in space history for the next 50-plus years as robotic probes took over the job of exploring the solar system.
The Economist
It’s only in the last few years that we’ve seen anything that resembles those ambitious goals of the 1960s, but even then, they are on a scale much smaller than before. And so it’s with some irony that the publication The Economist pointed out that Apollo was the program chosen to take on the Soviets to prove that the free-market system was better than the centralized government control of the Soviets.
Yet, it took a massive amount of American public resources, money, and centralized government organization to achieve it. So were we right to leave the moon after Apollo, or should we have continued maybe with Soviet and other foreign cooperation as we have done with the International Space Station?
