Was Going to the Moon Worth It? No.

A robotic probe could hit a golf ball on the moon much more cost effectively.

The fact that forty years on there's still serious debate as the whether manned missions to the moon were worth the resources compared to other alternatives suggests an answer: no. There's no sign that by the sixtieth or even hundredth anniversary there won't still be significant doubts about the Apollo program's overall utility and that illustrates how dubious its importance was. Historically, the space race came down to the development of ICBMs and a glorified international pissing contest.

Arguments about technologies developed because of the space program ignore the fact that the capital would've been put to use in other areas and constitute a broken window fallacy. Even if we do eventually wind up having a serious presence in space, it would be fallacious to argue that such early trips to the moon were especially necessary. In the case of exploration, robots are more effective and it's at least many decades premature to consider colonization. There is far too much basic research and development to be done at this stage and is analogous to going directly from inventing a kite to planning the Concorde. We should definitely do such research, but there are many other advances that have to happen before such extreme long range goals make any sort of immediate sense.

Proponents of manned space travel are reduced to arguing for it in public relations terms. This strikes me as an extremely weak position and a better way to obtain public support is to attain real results with modest budgets. The amazing discoveries from the Hubble space telescope and Mars rovers captivated the imaginations of millions and did so for a lot less investment and risk of human life. Space exploration should be treated the same as other scientific endeavors and be about substance, not style. Technologically, the moon landings were a triumph; a needless, wasteful, and wrongheaded triumph.