I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
—John F. Kennedy, May 1961
At the time of that speech US had a total of about 15 minutes of manned sub-orbital spaceflight experience, all of which came from Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 Mercury flight only three weeks earlier.
About 6 years later the Saturn V, the launch vehicle for all moon bound flights, made its maiden flight. Not one of the 13 Saturn V’s launched ever failed. The Saturn V cost around $43B in today’s USD, about the same as the combined 2009 payroll cost for the top TWO Wall Street banks.
And about 2 years after that we made it to the moon. We went back a few times to show it was no accident. Total cost of about $100B (today).
Now a couple of generations have passed and the country is in dire need of some inspiring accomplishments. And although we will probably need every cent and brain to tackle adverse climate problems and resource depletion, insane political posturing may well keep anything transformative from happening on that front anytime soon.
So, Mars in 2020 anyone?