With today’s inauguration, President Donald Trump is back in charge of the Artemis program. NASA’s 21st-century moon program began during Trump’s first term but has been plagued with developmental delays. Elon Musk, Trump’s most prominent backer, believes Artemis is an inefficient distraction despite being the CEO of a program contractor.
Similar criticisms were levied at the Apollo program during the 1960s. Such sentiment likely led to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to fund NASA’s more ambitious efforts, including a temporary base on the lunar surface. However, the funding allocated elsewhere would transform American society in other ways.
NASA was well aware that the Space Race’s fervor would fade once an American stepped foot on the Moon. There were plenty of post-Apollo ideas circulating the agency that were eventually centralized under the moniker of the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) in 1966. Nazi-turned-NASA-celebrity Wernher von Braun headed the internal think tank.
On the surface, the AAP was intended to conceive exciting missions that could be fulfilled with existing Apollo hardware. Between the lines, NASA desperately needed to maintain its massive workforce and coalition of contractors. The space program amassed an army of 400,000 employees for Apollo. If it were forced to downsize, it would (and did) hamper the progress of space exploration for decades to come.
The lunar base was the most audacious concept from the AAP. The congressional hearings for NASA’s authorization in 1966 outlined the plans for the base. The mission involved two separate Saturn V launches: one typical Apollo launch with three astronauts and one uncrewed launch carrying the base. Two astronauts would descend to the Moon’s surface in a Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), and another LEM would be already there. The plan refers to each as the LEM Taxi and LEM Shelter, respectively.
The Taxi is a standard LEM used to shuttle astronauts to and from the Command Module in orbit. The Shelter is a converted LEM to store the necessary provisions for an extended stay and a lab. NASA intended for astronauts to live in this shelter for two weeks. For comparison, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent 2 hours and 31 minutes on the Moon during Apollo 11. The final Moon landing during Apollo 17 lasted 22 hours. Two weeks on the Moon with this equipment sounds like a nightmare.
The Apollo missions were far from comfortable for the astronauts. They had to live on dehydrated food, take sponge baths and shit in plastic bags taped to their asses. I could never ask anyone to endure that on the Moon, but Von Braun wanted more. NASA also floated the idea of a purpose-built shelter allowing a crew of six to live on the Moon for six months. The German rocket scientist has been fixated on a permanent moon base since at least his 1953 book “Conquest of the Moon.”
Working conditions aside, costs ultimately derailed the lunar base. The AAP requested $450 million in 1967, but it received $80 million. Like Apollo’s budget, this would have likely ballooned into the billions by the 1970s if fully funded. The Johnson administration had other spending concerns.
During his 1964 State of the Union speech, LBJ gave Congress the task of declaring an “all-out war on human poverty and unemployment” and reforming “our tangled transportation and transit policies.” The Great Society was the most ambitious slate of domestic policy since the New Deal and hasn’t been surpassed by any president after.
In 1967, Congress didn’t want to fund a federal budget exceeding $100 billion, or $945 billion in today’s dollars. Thus, the AAP was axed so the Great Society could happen. It was a level of fiscal responsibility considered harsh today when 2024’s federal budget was $6.75 trillion.
The US Department of Transportation was formed in 1967 as part of the Great Society. The agency immediately oversaw federal subsidies that helped build modern rapid systems in several major cities, including the DC Metro, MARTA in Atlanta, and BART in the San Franciso Bay Area. The federal government also funded the introduction of a high-speed rail service to the Northeast Corridor with the Metroliner, an Acela precursor.
While NASA didn’t get to build a moon base during the 1970s, the trade-off was worth the sustained benefits of the Great Society. I can’t say the same thing today if the Artemis program gets canceled today.
