Perceptions of Apollo: Myth, nostalgia, memory or all of the above?

This essay explores the place of the Apollo program in the popular recollection of Americans more than 30 years after the last Moon landings in 1972, partly through a discussion of films and popular music. The collective memory of this singular episode in the history of the USA has altered over time. It has taken on mythical qualities, as well as a nostalgia for a time long gone. From a postmodern, post-cold war perspective Project Apollo appears increasingly unique, an experience born out of cold war rivalries long gone in which a demonstration of American technological capability was required. Many in the spaceflight community seek to become a multi-planetary species, and they point to Apollo in an increasingly mythical way as a representation of something that should be replicated. But the circumstances that made Apollo succeed have long since passed.