Some deadlines can be taken with a pinch of salt; others not so much. When John F Kennedy proposed a national goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the end of the 1960s, in an address to Congress in 1961, NASA’s scientists must have heard the clock ticking straightaway.
Described as the biggest technological achievement in human history, the Apollo Program at one time employed 400,000 people and relied on the support of over 20,000 businesses and universities. It would take time to achieve such an ambitious goal, but eventually their joint efforts paid off. On July 20 1969 Neil Armstrong uttered the famous words “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”, watched by an estimated one fifth of the world’s population. Four days later – and five months ahead of JFK’s looming deadline – the crew of Apollo 11 landed safely back on Earth. More Apollo missions followed and by December 1972 when the program closed, 12 people had walked on the lunar surface.
So yes, the United States won the space race, but with three astronaut fatalities and a total program cost of more than $124 billion in today’s money, victory came at a high price.
* All costs calculated in 2017 $US
