moon shot engineering tasks but it s worth remembering what was supposed to happen following the fulfillment of kennedy s vision and what happened instead. you see, apollo was supposed to be a beginning, not an end. nasa s space task group by 1969 envisions a first phase of apollo setting permanent shelters on the moon by 1973. permanent lunar habitation likely with supporting space station infrastructure was envisioned by 1980. a mars expedition building on the lunar experience was slated for 1983. instead of this study american progress towards colonizing the solar system, the final three apollo missions were scrubbed. instead, we spent the money on low earth orbit missions where we ve stayed for most of the past half-century. those missions are of course not without risk. my first memory a searing one familiar to so many children of the 80s, the challenger explosion. but that is not the reason we go to space. it is not the highest mountain. it s not lindbergh crossing the atlantic