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
Voyage (novel) part of his fateful decision to decide the future of manned spaceflight, instead of deciding on the Space Shuttle program as he did in our timeline. Preparations for this new goal include slashing the number of moon landings so funding and leftover Apollo spacecraft hardware can go towards the efforts of the manned Mars mission. Apollo 12 still lands, Apollo 13 still suffers its disaster, but Apollo 14 is crewed by the astronauts of the cancelled Apollo 15 mission to carry out the scientific experiments on the lunar surface, and is the last manned moon landing. At the same time,