Sixty years ago today , May 25 , 1961 , President John F. Kennedyappeared before Congressand argue America “ Should invest itself to achieving the goal , before this 10 is out , of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth . " The goal was achieved , but it is 49 geezerhood since the last sentence any human being walked upon the Moon , or indeed any other non - earthly natural body , conjure up the enquiry of why spaceflight ’s big dreaming have not been realize yet .
The first part of the answer is to make out that visiting the Moon was n’t an inevitable development , at least in the twentieth century . Polling indicatedmost Americans opposed the idea , despite the president’ssky - high favorable reception rating . Congress was far from convinced to free the funds require to make Kennedy ’s vision a reality .
Kennedy ’s evenmore famous speechmore than a year later , including the immortal lines “ We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things , not because they are well-fixed , but because they are arduous , ” was call for to change the mood .
After his assassination , continuing Kennedy ’s mission became a elbow room of honoring him , but once the goal had been attain that impetus was gone .
Meanwhile , the cost of the program mounted : $ 28 billion was spend on the Apollo and associated missions , and everyone had their own ideas on better uses for the money . Manyattacked the programbecause it was diverting resources from military purposes . The Vietnam War , and more recently Afghanistan and Iraq , drained America ’s capacities to spend big again .
The Moon deputation yielded immense technological benefit and inspired a generation of succeeding scientists , but value either to consider them against alternative was almost impossible .
The two obvious next move after thehistoric Moon shoot down in 1969 , either go bad to Mars or establishing an enduring lunar Qaeda , would each have required a commitment at least as big as flummox Neil Armstrong there in the first situation . Meanwhile , the calamity of Apollo 1 and the technical issues of Apollo 13 reinforced spaceflight ’s danger .
Kennedy ’s proposal was very much a intersection of its time . Russia had bested the United States both in launch thefirst artificial satellite , and getting thefirst humanin space . America needed a win to restore its prestigiousness , and put down a human on the Moon did that in style . The US coasted on this victory through the ' 70 and ' 80 , after which the collapse of the Soviet Union leave it without an opposite to spur it on . It ’s in all probability not a conjunction that plans to in the end go back to the Moon – with NASA ’s Artemis missionaiming for a 2024 landing – coincide with a hoi polloi of other nations making historic space breakthroughs , not least China , which is the only state to have alander on the far side of the Moonand recently became thesecond - ever commonwealth to successfully set ashore a wanderer on Marsafter the US .
The idea of renewed Moon missions is pop , which is whyseveralpresidentshaveproposedit , but paying for it is less so . Advances in computing and Eruca sativa propulsion mean going back will be a lot cheaper now than for the original delegation , ostentatiousness adjust , but the monetary value is still huge . Which is where NASA’sCommerical Crew Programcomes in .
There are plenty ofscientific reasonsfor renewed Moon missions . There are questions about our orbiter ’s geology the tilt Apollo astronauts brought back ca n’t answer , and telescopes located on the lunar aerofoil could have advantages over those in space . Whether these would overbalance the value of all the other things we could do with the same money is a very different interrogation .
A self - sustainingLunar basethat could preserve humanityif something happened to the Earthis so far beyond ourcurrent capacitytaking the first stride always gets remit . Hopefully , the current planned missions will take us back , but the long time lag since we were last there shows we might not have get down there in the first place had it not been for Kennedy ’s enthusiasm .
