it was the late 1960s, drugs were rampant and we were chasing russia in a space race. america was spending countless capital and people fighting in vietnam to prove at all cost that communist was the thing to defeat. at the same time we were in a space race. 

russia beat us to the first punch, and in 1961 they put the first man in space. we had to up the game and we initiated the quest to put a man on the moon. we did it, well at least we declared we did in 1969. we then went on with six manned missions to the moon, during some where we took a space buggy to the moon and drove over 16 miles around the surface, not once but twice. we swung a golf club on the moon, hung the american flag, collected moon rocks and never lost a single person.