On July 20, 1969, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration made history when the Apollo lunar module Eagle, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and spacecraft pilot Michael Collins became the first to land on the moon.
Apollo 11 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida four days prior. Now, the world marks the 50th anniversary of this historic mission.
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The real question is how and why the space race began. Jet Propulsion Laboratory historian Eric Conway suggests that it was part of the Cold War competition between socialist and capitalist ideologies, with the US and the Soviet Union over which was technologically superior.
One example was NASA's role in the development of useful space technologies like weather satellites, which were intended to improve weather forecasting and its data "was available to all mankind," and was intended as an argument in favor of a more open society, indirectly criticizing the USSR.
Part of the difficulty in getting these missions off the ground is the fact that they relied strictly on the crew, although there were earlier robotic missions that helped scientists ensure that the lunar surface was solid enough to sustain a landing.
The scientists also provided limited geological and topographical data of the moon's composition, says Conway.
"Nothing like this had ever been done before," he said, explaining that no one had any expertise on the matter whatsoever, and that "everything had to be invented."
Recent movies such as First Man and Hidden Figures also delve into what working for NASA was like for women, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.
Many women were hired in the fields of engineering, math, and computers. The first female scientist hired by NASA was Pearl Young in 1922, and the first female jet propulsion chemist was Lois Taylor, who was hired in 1946.
Although women were allowed to work in technical fields as well, during those days even the "exceptionally qualified couldn't reach the highest ranks," Conway says.
Today though, times have changed. Katie Bouman, who now teaches at Caltech, was the first to generate an image of a black hole, by using a computer-generated algorithm that she wrote.
The Trump administration has already announced plans to send more astronauts to the moon in the coming years, Conway said. Vice President Mike Pence has also called for the establishment of a Space League – a special part of the US Air Force devoted to futuristic battles in space.
New NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has been tasked with speeding up the return to the moon by 2024, said Cheryl Warner, a spokeswoman for NASA.
"We plan to use the moon as a proving ground for missions farther into the Solar System, including Mars … many of the systems we develop [for] the moon, we hope to repeat for Mars."
Conway and others at JPL and NASA hope that today people understand that the lunar mission was only possible due to the extensive investment of time, effort and resources that went into the 1969 mission, as well as its predecessors."
"It seems to me that we forget all that. We desperately want to believe that [reaching] space is easy, and it just isn't," he said.
The Universe is enormous and constantly expanding, but so is human curiosity. Perhaps the final frontier lies outside of what we already know exists.
