But President Nixon took the decision to end this hugely successful programme because it had achieved its principal aim three years earlier when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon.
But I close with this example not because of all it has achieved, but because of all the challenges that lie ahead.
It no longer feels like the main story of the decade because in this short time it has achieved perfect invisibility: less than a decade ago the phrase XBox did not exist – now it's a household name.
It has grown into the most extraordinary musical and educational movement I have ever seen, both because of the standards of musicianship it has achieved, the extent of the lives that are directly saved and enriched, and the vast scale on which El Sistema now works - in Venezuela and now with an influence across the world.
There is a tribunal to try suspects for the genocide in Rwanda, but some experts argue that its effect has been small, in part because the crimes, while horrific, were so local, and because, until recently, it had achieved few convictions.
I hope that the reason it's done well is because I've achieved something artistically.
When was the last time you stopped for a moment and thought "today has been great because I have achieved... " You have?
He insists that transformative change is possible because he has achieved it in his own life.
At root – as, for example, the radical journalist Laurie Penny has observed – it is because feminism has achieved social mobility for some women, and even a symbolically liberated lifestyle, but at the price of a truce over the economic and social subjugation of all women.
Another two justices concluded that while false statements were entitled to some protection, the Stolen Valor Act was invalid because it could have achieved its objectives in less restrictive ways.
