On July 29th in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Act (NASA) was established. The establishment of NASA was largely a response to the launch of Sputnik and the beginning of the ‘space race.’(1) In the 1960s, NASA had the budget, the political will, and the momentum provided by the Cold War to create a moon program that lead to Americans landing on the moon in the small span of eight years. Nowadays, there are a few motivations driving the interest in American space travel: national prestige, geopolitical power, economic opportunity, and scientific knowledge. 
Unfortunately, the private sector of space travel (think Jeff Bezos and Elon musk) is receiving more funding than the public sector aka NASA. This is largely due to an increasing sense of ambivalence towards space travel amongst the majority of America; space travel is subjected to the whims of politics and there are more immediate concerns planetside for citizens to worry about. However, NASA does have a number of exciting research programs and missions in place. Additionally, there is a current moon effort named Artemis. NASA recently announced that they are aiming to send a crew to orbit the moon in May 2024, and land astronauts on the surface in 2025. American astronauts haven’t been on the moon since 1972, and Artemis is designed to allow them to plant another flag, build habitats, and apply new knowledge of the lunar surface to use for future missions to Mars.