After Apollo: The Legacy of the Moon

For the last several years I have been working on a book project that is now nearing publication. It deals with the legacy of the Moon landings of the latter 1960s and the early 1970s and poses questions about the manner in which it has been understood over time. I would like to preview this study in this short presentation. The major contours of the American sprint to the Moon during the 1960s have been told and retold. Project Apollo—the sites where it took place, the people who participated in it, and the memory of it—have been singled out for comment, celebration, or castigation, depending on one’s perspective. This begs several questions. What has been the significance of this activity after some forty years? How do those who recall the effort understand it at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a postmodern world far removed from that of the late 1960s and early 1970s? What do the Moon landings mean to people of differing cultural, generational, economic, and ethnic backgrounds? What role did Apollo play at the time—and after—in helping to define modern American society, politics, and self-perception? What is it about the Apollo program of the 1960s and early 1970s that captured the imagination—that is, if it did—of the American people? Finally, what about Apollo retains its saliency nearly forty years after the last Moon landing in December 1972?