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I know this is an old chestnut, and I will be interested to see if there are any new reasons which I have not heard before.
No-one has been able to explain the reason to me in a satisfactory way why we have left the Moon behind as THE place-to-visit and why we have concentrated on Mars.
It takes approx 4 days to get to the Moon which is a relatively short period of time and we have a space station near Earth if we wanted to use it to develop a staging post or a place where we could do repairs.
All sensible people would have developed the Moon as a jumping-off point. It has many things going for it, among others, there is the close proximity to Earth which means that we might, just might be able to get a rescue mission mounted if anyone was stranded or taken ill there. Now, it even has confirmed water although it will be difficult to extract it, but again developing new technologies for just the kind of things we would need on other planets.
Some of the reasons I have heard why we dont go to the Moon any more is that unmanned missions are so much cheaper and easier than manned missions. I would agree with that, HOWEVER, there is still a lot of science we need to do on the Moon and many things we dont know about its surface. What has Mars got that the Moon has not?
Future Mars missions are already being planned and some countries are talking about manned missions. This makes it even more sensible that the Moon should be developed first as a base.
But No. For some reason, we have left the whole Moon thing back in 1976 and from then we have not really done anything on the surface apart from crash a few spacecraft into the regolith to measure amounts of water. Acknowledging China which has placed a rover on the surface although it died after only a few weeks.
Before anyone points this out. I know we have sent many spacecraft to and around the Moon to take data readings and photographs and we have probably mapped every square inch of the thing. The question remains - Why are we developing spacescraft to go far further to Mars than to stay in our own backyard. Developing the technology in a place which is far more accessible to enable us to test it easier and cheaper will ultimately be extremely necessary for deeper space travel.
I really do not think the reasons generally given are
a) very convincing
b) very sensible
So, finally, I think there must be some other reason why we have not gone back to the Moon and developed a base there.
Let the fun discussions begin. Why do you think we opted to go to Mars instead?
The problem is that the "real reason" that we went was dumb.
It was to beat the Russians.
If we had gone for logical reasons then going back more often would have made lots more sense. We should have had drone robots exploring and prospecting the Moon for at least 10 years instead of drones killing people on the other side of the planet.
Yeah, this Mars thing is an over extension. Mining on the Moon could help with Mars.
Nobody has figured out how to make money exploiting the Moon. We prefer to use government money to kill strangers on the other side of this planet to protect oil investors. Or something like that.
1). Wildcard scenario....the government doesn't really want us exploring very much. Another question is, why hasn't rocket technology improved since the 60's? I believe the Saturn V rocket remains the most powerful ever built.
Look at the improvements elsewhere since the 60's (computers, communications, electronics, etc). We can't develop a better rocket? Somehow I don't believe that.
It seems like the american government has really dragged their feet on space exploration since at least the mid to late 70's. We went up to beat the russians. Maybe we don't really want the consequences of full fledged space travel.
I.e. how do you tax people in outerspace? Can it be regulated? Who "owns" the moon or mars? Lots of tricky questions. I'm not sure if most major governments are really ready for that.
2). We haven't been science oriented in this country in decades.
If someone like Elon Musk was the president, we probably would have been on the moon years ago.
- We don't seem to have a long term plan for space. I've never heard of a 40 year plan, 50 year, 100 years.
The money issue doesn't make any sense. We spend more on football stadiums and sports arenas than on the pluto mission (new horizons, $700 million).
I think space exploration was just a way to drum up national support in the 60's and early 70's for this country. We really haven't done much since then. It seems like we've put about 1% of our collective effort into it. Very disappointing.
I know this is an old chestnut, and I will be interested to see if there are any new reasons which I have not heard before.
Well the reasons why the Americans left in the 70s still hold up as pretty valid.
The Americans had achieved their main aim, beat the Soviets.
With declining public interest in the Moon the American's felt it far too costly to continue.........not to mention the potential cost to life.
Don't forget the crew of Apollo 13 was almost lost and even Apollo 11 almost crash landed into a crater.
Landing Men on the moon remains a high cost endeavor and a high risk venture.
and most people aren't as fascinated by space as us good people in this forum, and with money tight in the economies of the world space exploration is not a top priority right now.
China is planning to Land a man on the Moon by 2024, but China has deep pockets and If China is to become a super power it needs to match what the Americans have done.........so the money and drive is right there for China.
Mars is more attractive right now simply because it hasn't been done yet.
psikeyhackr has it right. The reason we went to the moon was to bankrupt the soviets - something ultimately accomplished with Afghanistan. Then we got suckered into the same pit.
After 17, I pretty much figured we would never get back there in any meaningful way. It was a tremendous letdown from the goals of the 1960s, but reality can suck.
Or it could be that the cheese-eating Moonies dont want anyone stealing their cheese, cutting up their cows, or abducting their children and harvesting their DNA.
There was an outrageous rumour that we have been warned off by the aliens who live there. Of course, you would have to believe in a lot of far-out things to make that one make sense, but the government has been known to keep secrets and to experiment on and kill its own citizens when it suits them. So, maybe anything is possible.
Personally, I cannot see us landing men on Mars any time soon, so I think it is all a bid to get more money by promising more than they can deliver.
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