Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin salutes the Star-Spangled Banner
Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin salutes the Star-Spangled Banner
The Apollo Program, aimed at landing humans on the Moon, was highly politically motivated. Only eight years before the first Moon landing, the USA had fallen behind the Soviet Union in the field of spaceflight. With the idea formulated by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, that the USA: "… should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth …" they not only wanted to overtake the USSR, but also demonstrate the superiority of the free, western world over the closed, dictatorial USSR. Enormous resources were made available and every effort was made. For NASA and its Apollo astronauts – who with one exception were pilots recruited from Air Force or Navy – planting the American flag next to the Lunar Module was far more than a symbolic act.
