> The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC.
Well if that's your definition of "public support", Apollo just barely had enough to succeed. The Lyndon B. Johnson Administration that came after JFK was actively defunding Apollo and trying to dismantle the space program.
Back to my original point, society didn't "collectively decide" to make moon landings happen. JFK made a few bold claims to boost his public image against Russia and his successors tried to dismantle said space program. If it weren't for the tenacious engineers and leaders at NASA, moon landings would not have happened. In other words, if the engineers/leaders at NASA were not passionate enough, LBJ would have succeeded at dismantling Apollo.
Listen, these guys were very good, dedicated engineers.
But to say they did this without public support is stupid, because they were paid for from public money in the first place.
The public support comes in many ways. Just because some people didn't like the idea doesn't mean there was no public support.
The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC.