Meet the Challenge of the Seventies

Photo of footprint on moon with red text over it. Surrounding photo is red text and illustrations of stars over white background.

On December 1st, 1969, Esquire published an articled entitled, "The Challenge of the Seventies," in which they asked a number of "distinguished Americans" about what they thought our biggest challenges would be in the new decade. As the publisher's note pointed out, most wrote their responses shortly after the Apollo 11 trip to the moon, and consequently, the biggest theme among them is that of change and continued technological development. Long John Nebel predicted that by the end of the 1970's, there would be no more books or magazines because the broadcast industry will have made them obsolete. Several others pointed to the disillusionment that young Americans felt with the Vietnam War, sending a man to Mars, and the continued push for desegregation as America's next challenges. After the Apollo 11 successfully landed on the moon, many felt that the 1970's would be the test of whether the U.S. could continue to innovate or whether it would instead collapse into unrest. As Wernher Van Braun wrote, "We are the generation that will be remembered as having made the space beginning. All that is necessary now is the desire to continue."