The Space Race was a lie.
Look, its not that the moon landing was faked. It happened. Neil hates the conspiracy theories. The lie is that we ever wanted to go to the moon. We needed a spectacle to show the people. To justify the massive budgets. The agencies.
Neil stepped on a rock 239,000 miles from Earth. Big deal. I stepped on an Exoplanet circling Ursae Majoris 18 months earlier. Its a one-way trip - so there aint any going home. No ticker tape parade for me, but thats ok. Im here for my country.
See, the Russians beat us here by a few months. Japanese showed up a few weeks after us. Well colonize this planet for America. Because there isnt a choice....