From the viewpoint that man is destined to expand beyond the Earth, as he has over the Earth, Project Apollo is one of the critical developments in human evolution. It lifted man out of the terrestrial nursery and set him on the road to the stars. It enlarged his habitat by adding to it another world with untapped resources, a world from which he could gain a better view of the universe, its origin and evolution, than ever before. It opened to man the entire solar system.
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Although the twentieth century cannot see any more clearly than could the fifteenth century where voyages to their respective New Worlds would lead, I believe that we can identify the lunar landing as an event in the expansion of our species. Apollo was a spectacular advance in transportation technology, which has been a function of biological and social development of Homo sapiens since the invention of the wheel. The lunar landing was motivated by the traditional pressures which have caused mankind to spread from the place of its origin as a species to the ends of the earth, from deserts to poles. These were the pressures of intraspecific competition and the compulsion to seek and explore, a built-in behavioral characteristic.