Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11

by James Donovan

Despite the increased criticism and apathy toward it, the Apollo program continued, though NASA’s budget, adjusted for inflation, was about to start shrinking. It was still massive—for 1966, it was 4.4 percent of the federal budget—but the message from Congress appeared mixed; they were essentially saying, Go ahead and land on the moon, but don’t count on another program of equal size after that. More than anything, what kept NASA going was its commitment to a beloved leader cut down in his prime less than three years into his administration, a president who had been indifferent to the space effort at first but who had come to embrace it, at first for political purposes, then with genuine enthusiasm. His death had only strengthened that promise, and the people of NASA and others in government would keep it, despite the naysayers in Congress and the scientific community who said that the dangers of manned spaceflight outweighed its benefits and that machines and robots could do the same things as their human counterparts and more—and for a lot less money.