After WW2, where did the idea of going to the moon came from?
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Looooong before WW2.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/lunar-tales-the-first-imaginative-moon-landings/
It’s written about in the 1st century and there have been multiple stories about travelling to the moon. Jules Verne, for instance.
Cuz we stuck it up Hitlers butt so bad, President Harry Truman said “German bad guy dead lolz, f—k it, let’s go to the moon, eh?” 1945
I believe it was in his inauguration speech in 1961 President John F. Kennedy promised to get to the moon by the end of the decade. Especially after his assassination in 1963 this became an important goal for our country. We landed on the moon in the summer of 1969. It was a huge national accomplishment in our race to best the Soviet Union.
Man was always interested in the moon. But practically, the Soviets put a man in space first. The Kennedy administration wanted to show that the US could be a space leader and consulted with NASA on what was most likely that the US could do first – a space station or moon landing. LBJ was involved in it and came back to JFK and recommended a moon landing.
In the USSR, the head Soviet rocket designer (Korolev) proposed going to the moon not long after the sputnik launch.
It just so happens that the rockets you need to get you to the moon are the same rockets you need to bomb someone on the other side of the planet.
The rockets developed for long range strikes during WW2 were the precursors to rockets used for space missions. A lot of the scientists who worked for those rockets, most notably Wernher Von Braun, also later worked for NASA.
Everyone started going for space shortly after WW2. It was the next logical area that needed to be explored for a number of reasons. Russia got a really good headstart on this, America was lagging behind and was struggling to keep up.
So a new goal, which made all current efforts pointless, was tasked by the USA. We are going to put a man on the moon. It was the ultimate display of wealth, manafacturing might and technical supierioirty and if forced Russia, who would want to beat them, to start from ground zero to over come the difficulties of a moon landing.
TL:DR landing on the moon is very hard, so everyone has to start from scratch to do it. This enabled countries to show off how good they are.
The Russians launched the Sputnik satellite and there arose the furor over our being behind in the Space Race. President Kennedy gave his famous [Moon Speech](https://youtu.be/th5A6ZQ28pE?feature=shared). Of course where the idea of going to the moon is as simple as looking up at the night sky. One of our first film was [A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès](https://youtu.be/th5A6ZQ28pE?feature=shared) in 1902. It’s like saying why’d we decide to fly. Naturally WW2 gave us the first steps but by President Kennedy time it just took a strong measure of support.
Werner Von Braun wanted to send his rockets to space, make space stations, and fly is rockets off-planet. He just had the luck, good or bad, to end up working for the Nazi’s, who pushed him to make his rockets, but point them at the British. He is quoted as saying something like “the rocket flew perfectly, it just fell on the wrong planet” in reference to the first V2 rocket.
Why do I mention Werner Von Braun and the Nazi’s when you ask about “after ww2”? Well, he worked for the Nazis in ww2, but after, the US recognized his value as a rocket scientist, and put him to work with the early NASA forerunner, NACA. NACA had been experimenting with higher and faster planes, and paired with Von Braun, it didn’t stop.
You need big, accurate rockets to go to the moon just like you need big, accurate rockets to send a nuclear warhead to another country.
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