Good points indeed, but it seems they were telling the truth this time: they really will manage to get further from Earth than anybody ever did before, as other Dopers have calculated:
Which, together with this:
makes it a record.
And for what? Just to come back almost immediately 
I remember Laika, the dog the Soviets sent into space in '57. I remember Yuri Gargarin, the first human to orbit the earth ('61), and of course John Glenn, who was an American hero and the first American to orbit the planet. It was very exciting back then, as the cold war was in full bloom and the space race was big news. Kids were building homemade rockets; I used to draw rockets as doodles in my classes. It was a crushing defeat when the Soviets beat us out for first in space, and it was literally front page news when Glenn did it. In fact, the headline in huge type in our local paper was GLENN DOES IT!
FTR, Glenn was not the first American in space, he was the first to go into orbit. Alan Sheppard was the first. But an orbital flight and subsequent re-entry is a much greater accomplishment and risk than a suborbital one.
As noted in the previous paragraph.
Of course. Perhaps I should change my title to “pedant and unnecessary nitpicker”!
Nixon declared the next day, Monday, a national holiday. I’m not sure how many people were affected but I was working as a messenger for an accounting company on Park Avenue that summer before I went into college, and I’m pretty sure I had off
As for the OP question, I’d say I feel pretty lucky to be alive then and old enough to both appreciate and celebrate it. I hosted a party that day for the landing. And I got to see Apollo 17 launch.
It’s like traveling with a three-year old.
Actually, I was surprised they didn’t orbit a few times like Apollo 8 did.
Hey, no harm done.
Because Artemis can’t brake into orbit around the moon and return. It wasn’t designed to. The capsule weighs too much for the SLS rocket to boost a large enough maneuver stage for it to do so. That’s the whole reason behind the Lunar Gateway; and yes plenty of people have criticized this for years.
You take what you can get, I suppose. I was one of those back then who naively thought Apollo would lead to more in the decade or two after.
Born 1961, I definitely remember Apollo 8. Oddly enough I don’t recall being cognizant of Gemini at all, even though I have memories going back to that period. Possibly it was due to family turmoil in '65-'66. I do remember television shows of the time that featured two rather than three astronauts.
ETA: Another thing I don’t think most people realized was just how terribly risky the moon landings were. This wasn’t Columbus discovering the New World, or even Leif Ericson discovering Vinland; it was more like three people making it across the English Channel on inflated inner tubes. With the backing of literally the entire US federal government it could just be done; without major technological innovation it was never going to be routine.
You mention Onion and “From the Earth to the Moon”, but not “This is Spinal Tap”.
There is also, from French director William Karel., “Dark Side of the Moon”, a truly memorable documenteur.