After USA got schooled by a bunch of "commies" who were able to make history by putting the first human and satellite in space (among other things), America had to prove to the world that a nation as filthy rich as theirs was not a total waste of space and was still capable of rivaling the dirt poor USSR which only a few decades ago consisted primarily of illiterate, toothless peasants.
US claimed that they did it for mankind, yet they never shared any knowledge, technology, or offered any assistance to other countries to allow them to make the similar advances in an effort to progress our world towards bigger goals. Who knows, maybe mankind could've been on Mars by now if everyone had the know-how. The whole thing was an impressive, yet selfish and ultimately useless, feat.
Well, at least all the American kids can now claim that "they've" been to the moon.