Thanks, NASA

I don’t know if any of you have been watching NASA’s space shot sending four astronauts to fly around the moon, but it’s had my attention. I can still remember the day Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. Oh, I know there are plenty of doubters out there that are convinced a moon landing was staged and never happened, but I for one, believe. That’s why I was so glad to see us once again making efforts to go back.

We learned so much from the Apollo missions, six of which landed on the moon. Much of what we learned not only helped space travel, but advanced other areas of our life as well, including medicine. So, why’d we stop sending astronauts to the moon? It wasn’t because the technology was too difficult or impossible. It was because priorities shifted.

Let me take you back to 1969. There was no internet, no GPS, no smartphones. The Apollo Guidance Computer, the brain that navigated the command module and lunar lander, had less processing power than a modern digital watch. Its entire memory was about 72 kilobytes, yet it had to guide a spacecraft traveling at 25,000 miles per hour, perform a pinpoint descent onto the moon’s surface, and do it with razor-thin fuel margins. In fact, on Apollo 11, the lunar module had just seconds of fuel left when it touched down.

The Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions stood 363 feet tall and generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust. It was built by hand in an era before computer-aided design. Spacesuits were 21 layers of fabric, stitched and sealed to withstand micrometeorites while remaining flexible enough for astronauts to work. Parachutes for splashdown were enormous hand-sewn canopies. Everything, from the heat shields to the lunar rover, was developed at breakneck speed by about 400,000 intelligent and dedicated people across the country. (Thank you, GROK, for providing these statistics!)

The Apollo program cost about $25 billion at the time (roughly $257 billion in today’s dollars) and consumed up to 4% of the entire U.S. federal budget. It was, as one historian put it, “the greatest commitment of resources ever made by any nation in peacetime.” And it worked, almost perfectly, for six missions in a row.

So, what happened and why haven’t we gone back to the moon? After Apollo 17 in December 1972, the remaining planned missions (18, 19, and 20) were cancelled due to shifting priorities involving money and politics. 

Once the Space Race was won against the Soviet Union, interest faded. The Vietnam War, economic pressures, and domestic programs started competing for every dollar. As a result, President Nixon and Congress slashed NASA’s budget. Without the Cold War urgency, there was no political will to keep spending money on lunar missions. Instead, NASA pivoted to the Space Shuttle and low-Earth orbit missions. In other words, the technology was there to put boots back on the moon, but the will to do so no longer existed…until now with the Artemis Program.

Here’s the best part about the Apollo Program and our trips to the moon. Each mission propelled science forward in other areas, including medicine. NASA’s work on Apollo and subsequent programs generated hundreds of spinoffs that quietly revolutionized life.

On the medical side, digital image processing developed for lunar photography laid the foundation for modern MRI and CT scans. Rocket-engine fluid simulations helped create ventricular assist devices (tiny heart pumps that keep patients alive while awaiting a heart transplant.) LED technology tested for growing plants in space now treats wounds, reduces chemotherapy side effects, and manages chronic pain. Cooling systems from spacesuits help patients with multiple sclerosis and other conditions regulate body temperatures. Even kidney dialysis machines became more efficient thanks to NASA’s chemical processes for recycling fluids in space.

These weren’t direct “Moon-to-medicine” inventions, but they flowed from the innovations, engineering, and cross-disciplinary problem-solving that were used in Apollo missions. Even Myasthenia Gravis has benefited from our space programs.

In the 1960s and 1970s (during Apollo), treatments for Myasthenia Gravis were extremely limited. Anticholinesterase drugs like pyridostigmine (Mestinon) provided relief from symptoms by helping nerve signals get through, but they didn’t address the underlying autoimmune attack. Corticosteroids and early immunosuppressants like aziathioprine emerged in the 1970s, along with plasma exchange for acute crises. 

Fast forward to today. The field has entered into what experts call the “golden age” of MG treatment. We now have targeted biologic therapies that attack the disease at its roots rather than broadly suppressing the entire immune system. Additionally, medications have been developed to more effectively deal with symptoms, and refined use of techniques have been developed that have expanded treatment options.

What was once a disease managed with crude immunosuppressants is now increasingly treated with precision medicine tailored to specific antibody types (AChR-positive, MuSK-positive, etc.). The best part is treatment options are also being developed and are making headway for people who are seronegative, like me.

The moon landing proved that when humanity decides something is worth doing, and backs it with focus, funding, and talent, then we can achieve almost anything. We stopped going back to the moon not because it was hard, but because we chose other priorities.

With our renewed focus on the Artemis Program, we have to make sure it continues as a priority. Medicine, for one, has so much to gain. Chronic diseases like Myasthenia Gravis don’t have a “mission accomplished” moment yet. Researchers, clinicians, and patients need to keep pushing. We need to build on the foundational science and technology that the space program helps accelerate. The result? Treatments that would have seemed like science fiction in the Apollo era are now routine. Imagine how much we can accomplish if we continue to make Artemis a priority.