Was the Moon Landing a Problem for Anyone at the Time?

As a child, I was not lucky enough to stay up and watch the men walk on the moon during Apollo 11 or 12. When my brother and his friends boasted about having seen it, it was particularly frustrating since he was six and a half and I was only three and a half at the time. Despite this, I wasn't the only one with a mixed reaction to the moon missions. families and neighbors gathered together to watch the launches, with reports about the missions dominating the news.

The Moon Missions in Context

My grandfather worked as a consultant for NASA, and he brought home various NASA and moon mission souvenirs for us. We even had Snoopy in the space helmet stickers adorning our dresser drawers. It wasn't until 1995 that I watched the movie 'Apollo 13', and there, at the Times Square news crawl, I saw a reference to the Pope asking for prayers for the astronauts. This promptly reminded me of my fourth birthday when my grandmother mentioned a similar announcement about praying for the astronauts.

The Apollo Missions and Their Coverage

Despite the limited coverage on TV and in newspapers, I was still eager to know more about the missions. For instance, the Apollo 13 mission was a prime example of the media's attention to the events. A Google News Archive Search for a photo of 'Protesters in front row for Apollo 11 launching' from the Nashua Telegraph on July 16, 1969, provides a glimpse into the public's reaction at the time. Another headline on the front page read 'Soviets ignore Apollo', describing how Soviet news did not report the Apollo 11 landing, instead mentioning the Luna 15 unmanned probe. Only one Soviet newspaper published a French article about the Apollo 11 landing.

The Public's Perspective on the Apollo Program

The majority of Americans were not enthusiastic about the moon missions. As the Atlantic's article 'Moondoggle: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program' from September 2012 highlights, much of the public did not support the program. Indeed, the mission was canceled by Congress with several more missions still on the drawing board, two Saturn-1B launch vehicles already built, and the Apollo 18 mission nearly ready to go. Several factors contributed to this cancellation, including rising costs, tighter budgets, and a waning public interest due to the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.

It's important to note that while the moon landing was a significant achievement, not every component of the Apollo program faced a lack of support. For those who believed in the flat Earth theory, the moon landing certainly would have posed a problem. However, for the broader public, the motivations and concerns surrounding the mission suggest a complex mix of support and skepticism.