“We didn’t stop sending men to the moon because we lost our resolve. We stopped sending men to the moon because it no longer served any real purpose to do it.”
Hokum. There was an absolute failure of political will by the Nixon administration. There was always a purpose even if you cannot see it now - it was there then and still awaits.
The underlying theme is that, if we do not go back and in a very big way, others will do it ... and that will end US national security or at least make it a total joke - with the Russians and the Chinese controlling all the Lagrange points and the moon. What will we have?
Don’t say Mars because that may never be possible as studies show that prolonged weightlessness causes sever vision loss and a trip to Mars may leave the crew blind. Therefore, we have to find some way to make that trip under at least 1 gee for the crew, else drastically shorten the trip through new or nuclear propulsion.
Manned Space exploration is not merely ‘great’ but absolutely necessary for our survival as a nation, as a species, and to generate worldwide again the tremendous sense of Wonder and Hope.
And by the Ford administration?
And by the Carter administration?
And by the Reagan administration?
And by the first Bush administration?
And by the Clinton administration?
And by the second Bush administration?
And by the Obama administration?
There was no "failure" here at all. By the early 1970s it was obvious that manned exploration of the moon and other planets had enormous obstacles (including financial ones) that made it very impractical for the foreseeable future. For one thing, there is almost nothing accomplished with manned missions that cannot also be accomplished with unmanned spacecraft.
More importantly, the U.S. government made a prudent decision in the 1970s to focus NASA's efforts in an area that had far more practical benefits at a fraction of the cost: the permanent presence of manned and unmanned hardware in low Earth orbit.