Astronauts returned to reality back on Earth

America shifted gears after the success of the lunar landing and turned its attention to the Shuttle program

Before Apollo 11 even returned to Earth, NASA officials were planning for a day when humans inhabited the moon.

They thought the Apollo program would never end — that soon, a 24-man space station would be orbiting the moon, with humans traveling back and forth to igloo-like pods on the surface.

And then, it was only a matter of time before humans made their way to Mars. A plan, in fact was submitted soon after the lunar landing to President Richard Nixon, outlining a vision of a Mars mission departing Earth in 1981.

But the country’s future in exploration of celestial bodies by humans was about to turn very, very bleak.

In January 1970 — just six months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to step foot on the moon — NASA cancelled the final moon mission, Apollo 20. Later that year, Apollo 18 and 19 were also cancelled.

The last moon mission ended in December 1972, when Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the final of 12 men to walk there.

Instead of returning to the moon, however, Nixon moved forward with the space shuttle program, which would eventually fly more than 100 missions from 1981 to 2011.

And though many presidents since have tried to jumpstart return missions to the moon or Mars, all have failed to evoke the groundswell of support that President John F. Kennedy was able to muster with his 1962 speech that launched America into the

Space Race.

Efforts have, instead, been focused on interplanetary travel by probes without humans, which are less dangerous and less expensive.

Through this method of travel, the country has been to the Sun, Mars, Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and soon, NASA will be headed to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

Meanwhile, American astronauts have been limited to traveling to and from low Earth orbit, where the International Space Station flies.

It’s not clear when, if ever, this will change.