It almost seems impossible that thirty years ago people were walking on the moon. Apollo 17 was the last mission in December of 1972.
The later Apollo missions were interesting as they actually did real science
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo17info.html
Of course the Apollo program was not constructed to support science, but was a competition of the cold war (something many of us find ourselves longing for these days - two somewhat balanced superpowers who were afraid of each other to the point that big triggers weren't pulled).
Since then wonderful science has been done by unmanned space vehicles. The manned space program moved along, but its justifications were suspect. The Shuttle was supposed to reduce the cost of going to space by a factor of ten (it didn't - shuttle launches much more expensive than other routes) and the International Space Station was supposed to revolutionize manufacturing and medical science (some of the early PR mentioned finding a cure for cancer) and promote world peace.
I'm sure it is fun to work on ISS, but it seems like a waste of money - a third of the money going into other forms of exploration (heavens - perhaps even exploration of our own biosphere) would probably make a greater impact.
The first Apollo landing was an unforgettable experience for all of those who are old enough to remember it. For me, the next most exciting event (and one that produced much more science) was the Mars Pathfinder mission and Sojourner.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mesur.html
NASA does have plans for a second generation space station at L1 (the 3rd generation space telescope, noted here a few weeks ago, goes at L2 - an amazingly good spot for a telescope)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992955
It is almost embarrassing to admit that I had never heard about Lagrange Points until I was in grad school... It is a restricted three body problem and was somewhat obscure until people started realizing important uses.
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/ob_techorbit1.html
But back to Apollo ... If you have a telescope and a bit of imagination you may want to find the landing sites for the Apollo missions. The lower part of the lunar module is too small for any current telescope, but it is fun looking and imagining
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~durda/Apollo/landing_sites.html
Remember that this was mostly done with slide rule based technology.
An interesting question is "how long would it take to go back to the moon if we had to..." I doubt that it could be done in 5 years with $100B.
7:20:23 AM 
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