Why didn't the astronauts land on the moon?

The Apollo missions came to a premature end because the government was no longer keen to fund the costly missions. There was a considerable waning of public interest as early as Apollo 12 onward ( the second mission to land on the moon.) While people rallied behind the astronauts during the Apollo 13 'failure', it did nothing to enthuse public interest in subsequent missions and may have had the opposite effect. In addition, the main objectives with a political advantage had already been made and America had asserted its dominance, after a late start, in the space race over the USSR.

More recently, there are renewed plans for a return to the moon. Technology has advanced considerably since the last mission, and there is still much interest amongst the scientific community for additional investigation of the moon.