The Race to Develop the Moon

In January, the China National Space Administration landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon, the side we can’t see from Earth. Burns, who is sixty-six years old, remembers the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions—the Cold War-era efforts, beginning in the late fifties, that put men in space and finally landed them on the moon. Hapke recalls being told by several scientists and NASA employees that, “when the moon landing was first conceived, it was a strictly political stunt: go to the moon, plant the flag, and come back to Earth.”

Source: www.newyorker.com