That it all took place over a mere 11½ years (from JFK’s speech on May 25, 1961 to December 14, 1972 when Apollo 17 lifted off from the Moon) is even more astounding. How was it possible? To support that degree of focus, that alignment of national goals with untold numbers of “just-now-possible” technologies? And more importantly, with the legions of technically educated, talented, and dedicated people available to make it happen? Apollo certainly set the bar extremely high for any future space programs. It’s an interesting thing about space missions that when they go well, people comment on how NASA “makes it look easy,” and after the first mission they get bored until an Apollo 13, Challenger, or Columbia reminds everyone that it’s not easy at all, and never really was (then they forget again). NASA landed six crews on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972. Only Apollo 13 failed to make its planned landing, and that amazing rescue probably contributed as much as Apollo 11 and 12 did to preparing everyone for Apollo 14 and the three “J-series” missions that concluded the program (Apollo 15, 16, and 17 featured extended surface stays made possible by an expanded LM payload that including the Lunar Rover).
But what about the future? Why has no one gone more than 800 kilometers from this planet for 35 years? People who care about space know all about this, the lack of public interest, the lack of vision, the lack of funds, the shuttle and space station decisions, going in circles and all that. I happen to think that the ISS and shuttle experience will ultimately pay off – the international cooperation, the extended time in space, getting better at building stuff up there. Many are frustrated with the slow pace of moving beyond Earth orbit again, with NASA’s “Apollo 2.0” approach to Constellation, with arguments about whether the Moon is even interesting enough to bother going back (I’m sure it will pay off), or whether we should push straight on to Mars (I think it’s harder than Zubrin says it is). I feel some of the frustration too. I’m not getting any younger. I want to see people on Mars as soon as someone can try it with a reasonable chance of success, but I think we could also use some practice just a few days out from Earth, and maybe even fly some few-month asteroid missions to warm up.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with US government funding for space in the next few administrations, but I’m not counting on anything like the 2004-2005 Vision for Space Exploration surviving intact. I hope that some of the heavy-lift launch vehicle infrastructure really gets built, and the Orion too, but I think that over the next 10-30 years, private space will make surprising progress (SpaceX, Bigelow, and I hope many others), and the new Asian space race will also have an impact, leading to extensive commercial and government operations in the Earth-Moon region, and expanded robotic and eventually human exploration of near-Earth asteroids and Mars. It may take us to 2051 to get to “2001” (the movie version that implicitly assumed an Apollo-like pace continuing for another 30 years), but we’ll get there. I guess this just means that I’m an optimist about space developments in the coming decades, and that I’m not assuming that NASA is the key to it all – though they have done and still do many great things, and certainly will continue to have a role, maybe even as a technology leader. I can’t prove it but I think there is reason for optimism and that there will be multiple paths to space, as well as plenty of reasons for more people to be interested and involved.
Just before boarding the LM for the last time on December 14, 1972, Gene Cernan made a brief speech:
As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future — I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record — that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.It’s definitely taking humanity longer than Cernan and others at the time would have imagined to get back there (President Nixon got one thing right when he announced at the time, “This may be the last time in this century that men will walk on the Moon.”). Those thousands of Apollo workaholics and overachievers showed us the way, and even if it takes us a while longer to catch up to what they accomplished in those few astounding years, you can rest assured that we won’t be a one-planet species forever.