The Apollo 11 moon landing still amazes, not just as a technological achievement but as a feat of political will by a democratic society. Space scholar John Logsdon has spent a good part of his career thinking about why and how this bold mission succeeded. Logsdon depicts how the U.S. made what is arguably humanity’s greatest achievement.

There was only one woman in Mission Control when Apollo 11’s lunar module landed on the moon; today women make up 34% of NASA’s workforce. Debra Werner talked to one of the pioneers.

The circumstances that led the U.S. to undertake the Apollo 11 lunar mission 50 years ago next July, and the five landings that followed, were unique, and they won’t be repeated. Even so, space historian John M. Logsdon sees reason to anticipate that U.S. astronauts will in the next decade return to the moon.