Ben Shapiro on 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 launch
Ben Shapiro on 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 launch
On the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's liftoff, America appears less ambitious to explore space than it did when the shuttle blasted off, according to Ben Shapiro.
A Washington Post tweet calling the culture in 1969 that brought men to the moon, "fun, family-unfriendly and mostly white and male" was not an ideal commentary, Shapiro claimed Tuesday on "Fox News @ Night."
"We've become a little bit less ambitious about the moon and the planets and the solar system," he said.
"I think that private industry is probably what's going to take us there at this point, given the lack of ambition on the governmental level moving forward."
APOLLO 11 INSIDERS REMEMBER HISTORY'S MOST FAMOUS SPACE MISSION
He also added that NASA under former President Barack Obama was less anxious to get to space.
"NASA under President Obama was focused in on climate change like a laser beam," he said.
"And, apparently education in foreign countries, as well, on science."
Shapiro said he agreed with President Trump's NASA administrator, former Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., who said man would be on the moon, "right now, if it wasn't for the political risk."
On the Washington Post tweet, Shapiro remarked the 1960s were not perfect but they brought man to the moon.
"Yes, we recognize bad things happened in the 60s, also a few good things happened in the 60s -- like the signal achievement in the history of mankind."
More than 400,000 people worked tirelessly to put astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins into space on a hot Florida day for the most famous space exploration mission in history, Apollo 11. After touchdown on July 20, 1969, Armstrong would spend just slightly more than 151 minutes walking around on the Moon's surface, with Aldrin clocking in at 40 minutes less. For these men, July 16 was nothing short of extraordinary — and extraordinarily hectic.
"Mission control was talking to me 24 hours a day," Collins recalled in an interview with Fox News last month, before adding that July 20 was an even busier day. "The last task we had coming back from the Moon was reentering the atmosphere at a distance of 250,000 miles. The corridor we had to hit was 40 miles high, a tiny, tiny target. When we splattered into the ocean, we had to go through a whole other sequence. So [on both days], we were busy, busy, busy."
Fox News' Chris Ciaccia contributed to this report.
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