If there had been a webpage monitoring the progress of the actual moonshot in the 1960s, it would have said stuff like “we built a rocket” and “we figured out how to get the landing module back to the ship.” In 1969, it would have just said, “hello, we landed on the moon.” It would not have said, “we are working to establish the evidence base on multilevel interventions to increase the rates of moon landings.”

This is Adam Mastroianni skewering the “science moonshot” initiatives, and rightfully so. If all we have to show for them are 2,000 papers full of mealy-mouthed prose, it was a ground shot at best.