We choose to go to the Moon a week after Kennedy's assassination. The idea of a joint Moon mission was abandoned after Kennedy's death, but the Apollo Project became a memorial to him. His goal was fulfilled in July 1969, with the successful Apollo 11 Moon landing. This accomplishment remains an enduring legacy of Kennedy's speech, but his deadline demanded a necessarily narrow focus, and there was no indication of what should be done next once it was achieved. Apollo did not usher in an era of lunar exploration, and no further missions were sent to the Moon after Apollo 17 in 1972. Subsequent planned Apollo missions
Colonization of the Moon about four months only but covered a third more distance. 1974 saw the end of the Soviet Moonshot, two years after the last American manned landing. Besides the manned landings, an abandoned Soviet moon program included building the moonbase "Zvezda", which was the first detailed project with developed mockups of expedition vehicles and surface modules. In the decades following, interest in exploring the Moon faded considerably, and only a few dedicated enthusiasts supported a return. However, evidence of lunar ice at the poles gathered by NASA's Clementine (1994) and Lunar Prospector (1998) missions rekindled some discussion, as did the potential