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00:00Around 400,000 people worked on the Apollo program, NASA's flagship mid-20th century
00:06mission to the moon.
00:08Throughout its run, it cost the equivalent today of between $250 and $300 billion.
00:14It took 12 astronauts to the lunar surface, but then it stopped after just three years.
00:20What do you think happened, and why?
00:25First, let's rewind.
00:27Why did NASA even go to the moon in the first place?
00:29Sure, it was an extraordinary achievement, but what exactly made people so desperate
00:34to get there in the 60s, since we've seemingly forgotten all about it today?
00:38One major motivator was the Cold War.
00:40Across the 50s and 60s especially, the Cold War was fought between the US and the USSR
00:45via technological one-upmanship in the arms race and the space race.
00:50Nuclear weapons were getting more and more powerful, though the lack of any actual conflict
00:54thankfully meant that none of them were being used.
00:57So, both sides decided to use their rockets for something else… spaceflight.
01:02And the Soviets took a sizable early lead in the space race.
01:06In 1957, they launched the first-ever satellite into orbit, Sputnik, and later in the same
01:11year, they sent the first animal into orbit, like the dog in Sputnik 2.
01:16The Soviet probe Luna 2 became the first-ever craft to even reach the moon in 1959.
01:21Then in 1961, the USSR sent the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, and two years after
01:27that the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova.
01:29By contrast, America didn't send a woman into space until Sally Ride in 1983.
01:35And back when the first two Sputniks were launched, the US didn't even have a space
01:39program at all.
01:40NASA wasn't formed until 1958 as a direct result of the Cold War.
01:45So, after the Soviets quickly accomplished a heap of major milestones for space exploration,
01:50it was then down to the USA to do something really impressive.
01:53They didn't settle on the moon landing right away, though, briefly proposing an alternative
01:57plan called Project A119, which was an alleged US Air Force scheme to detonate a nuclear
02:03bomb on the moon.
02:04Luckily, when NASA was formed, the powers that be decided to send people to the moon
02:08instead of weapons, after wisely guessing that the public probably wouldn't appreciate
02:12a nuke in the sky.
02:14And so, the race was on, and the US were in catch-up mode, as the United States government
02:19pumped as much money as possible into the Apollo program.
02:22In 1966, NASA received its biggest-ever share of the US federal budget, 4.5%.
02:29This was $5.9 billion back then, but around $43 billion today.
02:34For perspective, NASA's 2019 kitty equals just less than 0.5% of the federal budget
02:39at $21 billion.
02:41So, they're now given less than half the money they once had.
02:45In reality, the Apollo space program was ludicrously expensive, and critics of the
02:50moon landing labelled it as just one big publicity stunt designed to triumph over the Soviet
02:54Union.
02:55Of course, it was also an incredible achievement for science and humanity, launching an interest
03:00in space travel that remains today.
03:01But, as soon as Apollo 11 actually won the space race, the government started looking
03:06for any excuse to shelve it and save some money.
03:09Overall, the Apollo space program that ended with Apollo 17 in 1972 cost around $150 billion
03:16in today's money.
03:17And while the space race effectively ended in 1969, the Cold War didn't, and the intentions
03:22of the government turned elsewhere.
03:24But NASA itself, created expressly to put a man on the moon, never totally lost interest
03:29in one day returning to our closest neighbour.
03:31It only lost the state funding to do so.
03:33Nevertheless, with NASA seemingly slowing down their efforts, more and more other space
03:37agencies turned their eye to the moon, instead.
03:41Up until 1990, all prospective lunar missions were dominated by the Americans and the Soviets,
03:46but then came the launch of the Hyten from ISAS, Japan's former space program.
03:51After that, the number of moon missions planned by other countries grew and grew.
03:55The current Japanese space program, JAXA, have continued to study the moon, as has the
03:59European Space Agency, and also ISRO in India.
04:03So, on an international scale, just because we're no longer sending people moonwards
04:07doesn't mean we're not still studying it.
04:10Probes and rovers are simply a much more cost-effective and comparatively risk-free option compared
04:14to humans.
04:15They don't need food, water or oxygen, and there's zero danger of illness, injury or
04:20death.
04:21One of the most significant current lunar leaders is the Chang'e 4 spacecraft, sent
04:25by the CNSA, China's official space program.
04:28The Chang'e 4 is our first craft to land on the fabled dark side of the moon.
04:32For some, the move marks the start of a new space race, or new moon race, between China
04:37and America.
04:38Only this time, the US isn't playing catch-up.
04:41For others, though, there's no longer a competition at all, and space travel has become
04:44a much more collaborative process.
04:47Because while the likes of China pushed the boundaries of what was previously possible,
04:51NASA hasn't simply been twiddling its thumbs since 1972.
04:54In fact, the agency reportedly does have plans to put people back on the moon by the late
04:592020s, and they did already launch a revitalized moon initiative, the Constellation Program,
05:04in 2005… although this was subsequently cancelled in 2011, again due to cut government
05:10spending.
05:11What else has happened since the curtain came down on the Apollo missions?
05:14Well, the International Space Station, for one.
05:16A project again more focused on turning space exploration into a united effort, it's jointly
05:21operated by five different space agencies from around the world.
05:25Advocates for the ISS say it holds significantly more promise than another moon landing ever
05:29could, given that it serves as an excellent resource to study the effects of actually
05:33living and working in outer space.
05:35Meanwhile, the moon is still a bleak and desolate prospect by comparison, meaning once again
05:40that NASA's funds are more likely to be spent elsewhere.
05:43But of course, it isn't only the ISS that NASA and the government prefers to spend its
05:47money on.
05:48There's also that other new and exciting prospect that so many have their sights geared
05:52towards…
05:53Mars.
05:54The Mars race is still bubbling away, albeit at a much slower rate than the original space
05:58race did, perhaps because there isn't a war to fuel it.
06:01And NASA certainly has aims to go to Mars, having already sent various probes and rovers
06:05to the red planet.
06:06Earth's other state-funded agencies also seem bound for Mars, but what makes this race
06:11seem different to any other is the power, influence and potential victory of private
06:15companies.
06:16Nowadays, NASA also contends with, or works with, the likes of Boeing, Virgin and SpaceX,
06:21and the global focus has decidedly shifted away from the moon… which now, by comparison,
06:26doesn't even seem so far away.
06:28Today, there are other, even more distant dreams to be had, demanding even greater amounts
06:32of time, expertise and money.
06:35Finally, and despite all the indications that NASA has gone cold on the moon for other reasons,
06:40there are some more outlandish theories out there.
06:42There's the well-peddled conspiracy theory that the moon landings never happened in the
06:46first place, and NASA just can't be bothered to fake elaborate lunar missions anymore.
06:50There's the idea that humans haven't gone back to the moon for almost fifty years for
06:54fear of aliens that supposedly reside there.
06:57And there's the notion that the dark side of the moon actually houses a fleet of deadly
07:01extraterrestrial spaceships, or that the moon itself is but a hollow spaceship primed to
07:06launch.
07:07They're all real theories but not exactly real science, and the likeliest truth simply
07:11isn't quite so exciting.
07:13Sending humans to the moon is an expensive business, and NASA doesn't have the financial
07:17firepower it once did.
07:19Throw into the mix an increasing demand to send explorers to another planet entirely,
07:23and it becomes an even greater task for the agency to balance the books.
07:27While renewed plans to send people and probes to explore the lunar surface prove that interest
07:31in the moon hasn't gone away, unfortunately, the money has.
07:48And that's why NASA stopped going to the moon.
07:51What do you think?
07:52Is there anything we missed?
07:53Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
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