On this day in space: Jan. 4, 1970: NASA cancels Apollo 20 moon mission

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On January 4, 1970, NASA cancelled the Apollo 20 moon mission.

On January 4, 1970, NASA cancelled the Apollo 20 moon mission. This came just six months after Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first people to ever set foot on the moon.

NASA's Apollo program logo. (Image credit: NASA)

Budget cuts along with the nearly fatal disaster that happened with Apollo 13 led NASA to eventually cut two more Apollo missions, Apollo 18 and Apollo 19.

Canceling these missions also freed up resources for the space shuttle program.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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