Why Haven't We Returned to the Moon in 50+ Years?

**Bob Crawford** (0:03)
You've reached American History Hotline. You ask the questions, we get the answers. Leave a message. Hey there, American History Hotliners, your host, Bob Crawford here. Happy to be joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline. You're the ones with the questions, I'm a guy trying to get you some answers. And keep those questions coming. The best way to get us the question is to record a video or a voice memo on your phone and email it to AmericanHistoryHotline at gmail.com. That's AmericanHistoryHotline, all one word, at gmail.com. And remember, we are the American History Hotline. Okay, today's question is about space, the final frontier. It's a great one. And here to help me answer it is Andrew Chaikin. He's an award-winning science journalist and space historian, author of numerous books, including A Man on the Moon. James Cameron called him our best historian of the space age. Andrew, so great to have you with me today.

**Andrew Chaikin** (1:16)
Oh, thank you so much for having me.

**Bob Crawford** (1:19)
Okay, Andrew, here's the question that our friend is hoping you can answer. It comes from Evan in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He wants to know, why did the United States stop going to the moon? And do we have any plans to go back? Now, Andrew, before you answer, I think we need to get a little background first. When was the last time a human set foot on the moon?

**Andrew Chaikin** (1:48)
Well, that was a long time ago. It was December of 1972 on the last Apollo lunar landing mission, Apollo 17 And amazingly, those last lunar footsteps happened just less than 12 years after President John Kennedy challenged the nation to send humans to the surface of the moon, return them safely to the earth. He actually said, land a man on the moon and return safely to the earth by the end of the 1960s. And it turned out, I mean, everybody knows that that happened on Apollo 11 in July of 1969
And Kennedy actually said nothing about going back, but we did go back and we tried to land on the moon several more times, and every one of them worked except for Apollo 13, and you all know that story as well. But yeah, after Apollo 17, that was the end of the lunar landing program.

**Bob Crawford** (3:00)
So let's go back even further. Why go to the moon in the first place? What was the reason that Kennedy wanted to put us on the moon?

**Andrew Chaikin** (3:11)
Well, it's really a product of the Cold War. And if you think about what things were like when Kennedy took office in 1961, the Cold War was at its height. The geopolitical competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, kind of a battle for international prestige and public opinion. And Kennedy was very alarmed by the fact that the Soviets in April of 1961 were able to launch the first human into space, Yuri Gagarin, which scooped our effort, which was called Mercury. And we didn't put our first American in space until a few weeks later with Alan Shepard, and Shepard didn't even get into orbit the way Gagarin had. And even before Shepard's flight, Kennedy met with his advisors and said, we have to find something to show the world that we are strong, that we have a strong society. We have nations out there that are developing nations, that we do not want them to align with the Soviets. We want them to be with us in the world balance of power. And so we need to find something spectacular to do in space. And he consulted with people from NASA.
And they said, if we try to land humans on the moon, we would probably succeed if we went all out. And the Soviets probably would not succeed. Even though they had at that moment more powerful rockets, they knew, the NASA people knew, that it was going to take a lot more than powerful rockets. Actually their rocket would not have been able to put humans on the moon. And it was going to take a heck of a lot more, you know, microelectronics, complicated systems, very sophisticated spacecraft. And so that kind of leveled the playing field. But Kennedy was thinking as a statesman. He was not a space fan at that time. I think he got much more enthusiastic when he saw what was developing as Apollo got started. But it was really Cold War competition that gave birth to the moon landing program.

**Bob Crawford** (5:36)
Has anyone from any other country set foot on the moon?

**Andrew Chaikin** (5:40)
No, no. Nobody has been on the surface of the moon except the 12 astronauts from Apollo on the six lunar landings. Now, NASA is trying, working very, very hard to return astronauts to the moon with a program called Artemis. And so far, the program has flown one unpiloted mission with the capsule, the Orion capsule, which is kind of the mother ship. The lander is still in development. It's being created by SpaceX. And there are plans next year to send four astronauts around the moon. And then after that, perhaps in 2027, will come the first landing on the Artemis III mission.