Thinking about it on my walk just now, the original Kennedy Moonshot had a visible, realistic antagonist: Soviet Russia. The Soviets beat the US to several spa

Thinking about it on my walk just now, the original Kennedy Moonshot had a visible, realistic antagonist: Soviet Russia. The Soviets beat the US to several space-based accomplishments, calling into question everything including political and economic systems. However, the Apollo program to get humans to the moon and back again was not a direct attack on the antagonist; it was an in-kind demonstration of power.