>These things were mainly publicity stunts. The supposed biohazard quarantine for returning Apollo astronauts was a theater performance, too.

Wow. What else about Apollo was theater performance?

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AdamN 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The expense report for mileage was another one. Kind of cute and an interesting insight into the time period but it wasn't really needed.

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ta1243 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The entire thing was theater. It was to show off American technical superiority (the US having already lost the space race in terms of first sub-orbital flight, first satellite, first animal in orbit, first man in orbit, first spacecraft to the moon, first woman in space, first spacewalk etc)

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pinkmuffinere 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It feels as if this question is intended to make a strong implication, but I'm not sure what the implication is -- Can you clarify? I almost think you are suggesting the moon landing was fake, but that's very stereotypical, so I don't want to assume.

	▲	schneems 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not OP but: The very essence of the program was publicity. As soon as the public lost interest (mission accomplished!), the program was canceled. We built Saturn V rockets that we never launched. That being said, I know a lot of things were unknown. We didn’t know if the surface of the moon would interact with the atmosphere inside the capsules to combust. Some of these unknowns were downplayed. Some others were played up for dramatic effect. The whole process of getting a person to the moon took hundreds of thousands of involved workers and the. coordinated effort of a country’s politicians and populace to fund it. I think it’s unfair to boil it down to “just publicity” but it is a big part in keeping it afloat.
	▲	fragmede 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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