He is the last surviving presenter who guided an awed nation through the historic Moon landings in what was Britain’s first ever all-night television broadcast.
But, 50 years on, science historian James Burke, now 82, believes there is little appetite among taxpayers for the “effort or the money” required to send humans back to the lunar surface.
The next phase of exploration will be more ambitious, he said – and led by China instead.
“[Donald] Trump wants to go back to the Moon, Nasa talks about going to Mars. I think there is no political appetite in America for doing either of them, either the effort or the money and the expenditure,” Mr Burke said.
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“Where there is, or rather where public opinion doesn’t matter, and where there’s loads of money, is China.
“My bet will be we’ll see a Chinese landing on Mars within the next 10 years.”
The last manned mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, was in 1972.
In 1969, Mr Burke co-presented the BBC’s Apollo programmes with late astronomer Sir Patrick Moore and Cliff Michelmore, who died in 2016.
Coverage ran for more than a week, with special broadcasts from launch day on July 16 and continuing through to the moment Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 20, the first all-night broadcast on British television, and the astronauts’ safe return to Earth on July 24.
As well as being massively expensive, Mr Burke said the Apollo missions did not contribute anything technologically or scientifically because much of the material used already existed.
“The rocket was made of stuff that already existed, the computer already existed,” he said.
“A lot of people talk about Teflon frying pans and all stuff like that, but that already existed. What Apollo did was put it all together and point it at the Moon.
“I don’t have any feelings about going back to the Moon or not. I think, probably, given the fact of nanotechnology and what that’s going to do for us, lots of good things, I think going back to the Moon is a waste of money.”
However, Mr Burke argued the scale of the missions set a new bar that transformed how major projects were run.
He said: “400,000 people in 2,500 companies made five-and-a-half-million bits that went together to make the rocket, each one of which had to be flawless and perfect and wouldn’t break down, and that kind of management is something Nasa invented and I think that has changed the world more than anything else.”
The next major space station development is the proposed Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway, a future outpost intended to serve as a laboratory and short-term accommodation post for astronauts exploring the moon.
In November, the next round of funding decisions for the project will be determined by the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency is keen to play a part. Sue Horne, head of space exploration at the UK Space Agency, said it would be bidding to deliver both communications and refuelling technologies on the joint effort.
She said: “Europe – hopefully, if we get sufficient subscriptions – will be building the habitation module and the service module.
“In the UK, we would like to do the communications system and the refuelling element but there will be a lot of competition for the refuelling element.
“I think on the refuelling element, it’s probably 50/50, we have a much better chance of getting the communications – we have a strong communications industry.
“Looking to the future Moon programme, there’s a lot more commercial activity and there is a UK company planning to develop a commercial communications service around the Moon.
With India, Israel, the US and China all sending missions, there is a demand for communications service.”
Ms Horne added the Lunar Orbital Platform would act as a testing ground for putting humans deeper into our solar system. She said: “There’s a lot of technology we have to develop and the best place to test it out is on the moon.
“It’s nearer, and therefore cheaper and easier to test it out on the Moon, so we need to use the Moon as a test bed to enable us to do the more distant places like Mars.”
Nasa is aiming to return astronauts, including a woman for the first time, to the Moon by 2024. However, a 34 million-mile round-trip to Mars is the real long-term goal. In 2015, Nasa suggested it could be achieved by 2030.
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