On Aug. 1, 1968, NASA canceled the production of its Saturn V moon rocket. The giant rocket was the only launch vehicle to have ever carried astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, and it was the largest, most powerful rocket ever.
10 surprising facts about NASA's mighty Saturn V moon rocket
NASA built 15 of these rockets but only flew 13 of them. When NASA made the decision to stop building the Saturn V, it was almost a year before Apollo 11 astronauts would walk on the moon for the first time.
A federal budget deficit and the rising costs of the Vietnam War led Congress to slash nearly three-quarters of the funding that President Lyndon Johnson had allotted for the Apollo program.
NASA's 17 Apollo moon missions in pictures
The last Saturn V launched in 1973, and it was originally supposed to send Apollo 18 to the moon. However, that mission was canceled, and that Saturn V launched the Skylab space station instead.
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