Although the Apollo 11 moon landing was one of the most remarkable events of the twentieth century, it was also among the most abstruse—what did it mean, after all? With implications ranging from the everyday benefits of “spinoff” to the cosmic questions of existence, it seemed like it had to signify something important. But the United States was undergoing a profound cultural shift as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, a transformative moment when the rationalist, technological optimism of the high Space Age began losing traction to the more intuitive, relativistic, neo-romantic cultural aura of the 1970s. This turn left many Americans who reckoned that Apollo should be important—somehow, in some way—unable to adequately integrate the event into their worldviews, their American mythologies. This study examines how Americans attempted to make sense of Apollo in the 1960s and 1970s. This period saw a noticeable retreat from the faith in science and rationalism that had driven American thought and culture in the decades following World War II, and which formed the foundation of the successful space program. In its stead emerged a new understanding of “progress” that was divorced from its previous equation with technological advancement for its own sake and reconsidered in terms of its impact on sustainability and personal fulfillment. In this environment, Apollo—an endeavor that that ultimately seemed to offer no deeper meaning that itself—provided bold evidence that the crucial answers to life’s quandaries would not be discovered through technological journeys to the near planets; indeed, that the prolonged emphasis on these sorts of materialist endeavors had only obscured humanity’s quest for true meaning and its continued sustenance on what Apollo made abundantly clear was the only planet it would inhabit for a long time to come. This cultural turn spelled doom for a space program that for all its futuristic trappings was actually firmly rooted in the past, in a mindset that had flourished throughout the middle of the twentieth century but was now falling under wide suspicion. / text

The aim of this study is to outline circumstances and reasons which caused a birth of an ambitious plan which enabled the USA to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth. The impact of this thesis is to chart individual pilot expeditions also from the eyes of real participants. One part of this study is a chapter dealing with astronauts' preparation and training. The thesis also reminds the fact that among people who landed on the Moon was also the astronaut of the Czech origin, Eugene A. Cernan. In the end the study deal with technology that helped to include program Apollo among the greatest events of the 20th century.

The Moon Race in Swedish Newspapers: A Newspaper Analysis of Sputnik 1 and Apollo 11. This study will investigate Sputnik 1 and Apollo 11. This will be done in the form of a newspaper analysis, and the newspapers being analyzed are Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter. The study will address the differences and similarities in the newspapers reporting on Sputnik 1 and Apollo 11. It will also explore how these events may have been experienced by those who read theses specific newspapers. Finally, the study will discuss how this outcome can be utilized in history education. The study uses a qualitative mothodology. The theories used are gestalt theory and philosophical geography. The study concludes that the newspapers have different overarching themes they write from, and that Sputnik 1 and Apollo 11 were likely experienced differently depending on which newspaper you read. Lastly, the study finds that the outcome can be used for educational purposes by demonstrating to students the complexity of the Cold War era.