I can't pretend to trace the exact process by which the powerful images of men on the moon combined with a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era of heroes combined to create the notion that the Apollo missions were overwhelmingly popular. Yes, there was a brief, shining moment right around the moon landing when everyone applauded, but four years later, the Apollo program was cut short and humans have never seriously attempted to get back to the moon ever again. We've told ourselves a convenient story about the moon landing and national unity, but there's almost no evidence that our astronauts united even America, let alone the world. This chart from the Congressional Research Service shows just how extreme the Space Race's funding levels were, even in comparison to the Manhattan Project or the brief fluorescence of energy R&D after the OPEC oil embargo of 1973.
It bent the whole research apparatus of the United States to a symbolic goal in the Cold War. Part jobs program, part science cash cow, the American space program in the 1960s placed the funding halo of military action on the heads of civilians. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, a process began that has all but eradicated any reference to the substantial opposition by scientists, scholars, and regular old people to spending money on sending humans to the moon. 77 percent of people in 1989 thought the moon landing was worth it only 47 percent felt that way in 1979. Polls both by USA Today and Gallup have shown support for the moon landing has increased the farther we've gotten away from it. Kennedy made 50 years ago as the beginning of a glorious and inexorable process in which the nation united behind the goal of a manned lunar landing even as the presidency swapped between parties.
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