If we really did land on the moon, why can't we do it again?

Question

If we really did land on the moon, why can't we do it again?

Answer 1

No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Answer 2

We can, we simply choose not to as landing robots on the moon is cheaper and safer.

Answer 3

SMOM - Small Matter Of Money

We are getting ready to do it again.  We will use the lunar base as a platform to go to Mars.  Here is an old timetable:

2009: A smaller satellite carried aboard the LRO is deliberately crash- landed in the moon's Shackleton Crater, near NASA's favored south pole site. The smaller craft is equipped with sensing equipment that will analyze dust from the landing's impact for evidence of water.

   2014: NASA begins a series of manned spacecraft missions. The missions will orbit the moon's polar regions, working to identify possible landing sites, natural resources and hazards to the lunar vehicles that the agency is designing.

   2018: NASA starts sending four- astronaut crews to land on the moon (see rendering at right). Initially, crew members will stay on the satellite for about a week before rotating back to Earth.

   2024: Permanent moon base will be completed. Astronauts will begin living on the moon continually, with crew members staying for longer periods of time – as long as six months.

   2030: This is space industry analysts' earliest estimate of when NASA might make its first launch for Mars. The agency hasn't yet projected the year in which it thinks Mars flights will begin.

Answer 4

who said we can't?

bush stated plans of the US building permanent lunar bases by 2020 (yup, 12 years.... thats not that long)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

and yes, its cheaper to send robots, but we've already been to the moon and physically brought samples back. so what would be the point?

the next time around though, things will be different. ultimately we'll launch from the moon to mars if possible (its also cheaper to launch from there once its built, and consider china and russia will be building bases at that time too)

yeah, I agree china WILL be the next to land (powered by communistic determination) . they're already "sky rocketing" though space tech accomplishments in the past 15 years. they went from not having a space presence to lunar base plans in that period of time not to mention the moon probe they just sent

I call Katherin out on the thumbs down bit

Answer 5

Moonfaker's claims display whats wrong with the present educational system. None of the "we never went to the Moon" claims are at all true.

modax42 makes a few mistakes, as well. The whole program cost of Apollo was $24 billion dollars, in 1964-1972 money. That paid for all the development costs of all of the hardware, all of the building of launch and other facilities (For the last 27 years, the Shuttle has used the Apollo pads, crawlers and VAB), and for all of the built hardware, some of which was never flown.

Its tough to slap a price number on just one flight, separate from all that. It would be like saying "What would a hybrid car cost, if we only built 20 of them?". Lots.

Now, once sunk costs are factored out (Development costs don't much change if you fly what you've developed 2 times or 20 times), the marginal costs of an Apollo flight fall to about $250 million. The reason that there are 2 left over Saturn V rockets to look at now, is that they were built and paid for, and then their flights were cancelled as a false economy measure.

Due to politics. Thats like buying a Mercedes, and then never driving it because gasoline is $4 a gallon.

Also, his claim about doing it better with unmanned probes only goes so far. Yes, what the two rovers on Mars are doing is fabulous, but a two man crew could have done all that same work, and covered the same distances in about 2 weeks.

One can see this in comparing the Apollo landings, with contemporary Soviet unmanned Moon landers that brought back some lunar soil. The Apollo crews brought back over 300 KG of samples, and were able to make educated choices over what rocks to sample and which ones not to bother with.

The three Soviet unmanned landers could only scoop up a bit of soil from where their scoop fell, and they brought back about 150 GRAMS of lunar soil, total. How many flights of those would you need to bring home 300 KG ? It would actually cost more than Apollo.

The reasons we haven't been back was all politics. There wasn't a political will to keep doing it, and no such will, no $$$. We also used to be able to fly on a supersonic airliner, but thats gone too, for similar reasons. Not enough public demand relative to the costs.

Answer 6

Maybe we can but america doesnt want to, as in been there done that, also going to the moon will take years of planning, designing, building, and will cost billions of dollars. why do we want to?

Answer 7

"Can" is more about the political will to do so than technical ability. For the last 35 years, landing on the moon wasn't just interesting enough (for the POLITICIANS who control NASA's budget) to spend much money on it.

The current and future missions are different, we don't just want to fly there, stay for a day, and fly home. Been there, done that. A different mission requires different tools, and we don't spend as much on it as we did for Apollo, so it's taking some time.

Moonfaker's claims have been debunked numerous times.

Edit::

Just to give one example...

If the Van-Allen-Belt is so deadly, why did the Soviets not only not expose the fake, but even claim their own lunar mission?

Answer 8

the crew of Apollo 11 and subsequent astronauts had faked their orbit around the Moon and their walk on its surface by trick photography, and they never got more than halfway to the Moon. the radiation belts prevented humans from reaching the moon.

Lack of stars in the pictures and collins saying he didnt remember seeing any stars is quite telling.

The quality of the photographs is implausibly high.

The color and angle of shadows and light are inconsistent. often showing a second or third light source was used.

Identical backgrounds in photos are listed as taken miles apart.

Cold-War prestige

Money — NASA raised approximately $30 billion to go to the Moon. in the 60's that a lot of tax payer money.

Problems early in the space program were insurmountable

To fulfill President Kennedy's 1961 promise "to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

still some think it was real and maybe the video and photography was faked to show the world.

only Nasa and the astronauts know the truth.

maybe china will find out for us soon. if they don't see anything on our landing sights ,nasa will be exposed.

in short we cant go back because the van allen radition belts prevent man from going.

nasa would have you believe in 1960's the sent up rockets to the moon ever 3 months, and today they are saying it will take 12 years. come on use your heads folks.

why do so many take nasa's word as gods?

Answer 9

they faked the moon landing

Answer 10

Going to the Moon is expensive, and after Apollo 11 successfully beat the Russians there the US taxpayer, from whom NASA gets its money, lost interest in funding further trips to the Moon. All the technological developments in the world won't hepl unless NASA is actually given money to spend to build the hardware. It's the same reason I don't make regular trips to Canada, even though I went once before. I just don't have the money to spend on such trips now. They are now working on Project Constellation, but that's a different beast altogether, since it is hoped to be sending men on much longer space trips to the Moon and Mars, which have different problems than the short trips to the Moon in the late 60/early 70s.

Answer 11

we CAN do it again, we just don't want to, nor really need to. we've discovered pretty much everything there is to discover on the moon... now our focus is on other planets. people would rather see their tax dollars go to a man on mars than a man on the moon. its a lot easier, and safer to land on the moon now than it was in 1969. we could, and did land on the moon in 1969. its a lot easier now because of the new technology. but like i said, in the eyes of most americans, landing on the moon is yesterday's news. people want interplanetary exploration.

Answer 12

we did do it again.  we did it SIX times! each time required an investment of Billions of taxpayers dollars. How are they going to justify the staggering cost of *yet another* moon mission to the taxpayers?  And what sort of science experiment could they possibly do this time that they couldn't send a robot to go do for much less $$$.

Answer 13

We can.  Who said we can't?  

Do you remember how expensive Project Apollo-Saturn was, and why it was aborted after 6 landings?

Answer 14

Because NASA got to big for their britches

Answer 15

Who said we can't? It wouldn't surprise me if China sends a manned mission there in the next decade.

Politically, there's no motivation for going to the moon now. America's already been there and got the t-shirt.

Answer 16

which we did, we have plans to go back in the next decade

Answer 17

We could if we perceived a threat that Russia or China might be able to stake a claim to the moon and prevent us from going there. The space race in the '60's & '70's was about the military dominance of space. The survival of western civilization was at stake, so we gave it top priority. Now, we are clearly years ahead of the competition, so we're just protecting the lead that we established by landing men on the moon.

Answer 18

It's all about money and manpower.  The powers that be don't feel it's worth spending the resources to expand our knowledge. They're looking for instant gratification and to buy votes. If we wanted to, we could go back there in about 3 years.  That's how long it would take to build the spacecraft and train the astronauts and ground crew to do the job.  All they have to do is copy what we did on Apollo.

Answer 19

We can, but there wasn't anything that great there the first time around.  It is more productive to study things we don't yet know about.