NASA’s Apollo moon program wasn’t sustainable, but with commercial space, Artemis can be Intuitive Machines prepares to launch robotic moon mission from Florida in 2022 Tags: Americans have not stepped foot on the moon in nearly 50 years, but that’s going to change very soon. This week on “Space Curious,” Astralytical space consulting firm founder Laura Forcyzk helped explain why the U.S. left the moon after the final Apollo mission and hasn’t been back. The U.S. space race with Russia was the major driving factor to achieve a moon landing in the 1960s. The reason NASA stopped sending astronauts after 1972 and didn’t build the moon base it plans to now comes down to funding and politics.