https://xkcd.com/1074/ https://xkcd.com/1074/ provides a surprisingly robust explanation for how we know we actually went to the moon: > If NASA were willing t

https://xkcd.com/1074/ https://xkcd.com/1074/ provides a surprisingly robust explanation for how we know we actually went to the moon: > If NASA were willing to fake great accomplishments, they'd have a second one by now. More prosaically, the main reason that we went to the Moon in the first place was that it was a superpower dick-length contest, although the space technology also has sufficient other uses in things like intercontinental ballistic missiles and other military technology. Once someone landed on the moon, the contest was over, and the evaluation of the scientific or economic benefits of manned missions to the moon took over and... there isn't really that many, so interest in it waned very quickly, and resources were allocated to other (frankly, more useful) missions instead. Interest has spiked again because it's essentially a new dick-length contest. Several powers that weren't superpowers 50 years ago are interested in doing it, in part, to prove their mettle as modern superpowers, and the US is interested in doing it again (in part) to one-up the wanna-be superpowers. For the US in particular, manned spaceflight programs have had a fair amount of listlessness since the cancellation of Apollo. There's a tension between people who want to focus on LEO, those who want to move to the next great accomplishment (landing on Mars, which is probably somewhat beyond current capabilities, though how far beyond is debatable), and those who would rather have more robotic space exploration endeavors. And pretty much every administration comes in, declares a new vision for human spaceflight that scrubs the previous administration's proposals, and things move on because you can't get anywhere in 8 years.