if man really landed on the moon, why haven't they ever gone back?

Question

just wondering...

Answer 1

Excellent question, one that keeps popping up.

Fear not, we went to the moon. For all you conspiracy theorists, though, the recent disappearance of the original moon video tapes from the NASA archives brings a lot into question!

The best reason to believe that we went to the moon is that last year, after 5 years of work, about 50 guys with a dream and a spare 40 million dollars went into space for three minutes. The same concepts apply for the moon journey, and so with 40 billion dollars, there's no reason to think it didn't happen.

The original race to the moon was fueled as my by the desire to discover a new place as by the fear of being beaten in the cold war. The motivation to prove technological superiority helped justify immense public spending and to risk lives in an inherently risky endeavor. If we didn't make it, the Russians wouldn't have wasted a second proving that fact, and ridiculing the US in the face of the world.

Once the 6 successful moon landings had been achieved, the race to the moon was basically over, and the world entered a major time of change and upheaval, as the Russian space apparatus came screeching to a halt due to lack of funding. The US then changed its focus to Star Wars type projects, where they hoped to shoot down nuclear weapons using lasers mounted on satellites, and to the international space station, which in all honesty was an attempt to make great strides in understanding the effect of space on humans in particular and life and materials in general, but ended up being much too ambitious, too costly, and ultimately to noisy to be of any real use.

So now we are entering a new race to the the moon, mars and beyond, and Mr. George W. Bush put it. Why the sudden excitement? Well, China has recently put a man in orbit, and has boldly stated that they will go to the moon in the next 10(?) years. So we wouldn't want to be beaten by the Chinese, at something we've already done, right!

There are other reasons too. With the immense success of the Mars rovers, we have begun to uncover so many exciting things about that planet that it would be a real to not go there ourselves. The chance of us exploring our own solar system more fully, and possibly to find life on another planet seem real, but require the first step of us again being able to get out of low earth orbit and into trajectories that take us to new areas. This is an exciting time to be watching space exploration, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Answer 2

Why would you doubt that they did land on the moon if the Soviets--who had both the technology and the motive to verify the US claims--never doubted the moon landing?

And they did go back. There were a total of six successful landings. However the trips were very expensive, very dangerous, and the total amount of research can't justify continued landings indefinitely.

Answer 3

Money. It's expensive to send out manned flights to begin with, let alone those to the moon, and anything we wanted to know about the moon now we can pretty much do so with cheaper unmanned flights. The manned flights are sexier to the press and Congress but it's the unmanned satellites that have provided the most bang for the buck, so that's what NASA's been concentrating on.

Answer 4

In the past manned space mission were more popular because there was more tolerance of risk...or obliviousness to it. Just like more smoking regulations have been put in place - there are more rules about space missions. We don't just shoot people out there and hope they make it back anymore.
Really, there isn't a ton of useful stuff on the moon nor is there a lot of information to gather so the risk compared to the reward isn't that great.

Answer 5

There were six successful moon landings. We have found out just about all there is to find out on the moon. Given our current technological status, I see no real reason for sending humans anywhere in the solar system for exploration when we can do it with robotic rovers , probes or surveillance satellites.

Answer 6

I don't know why they would want to we know everything we need to about the moon now and they did go back quite a few times. I have a theory and design of how we can get to Mar's I just havent patented it yet. Plus I would need some advisor's and what not to go over it but that is where I want to find out about. Plus my design is workable I believe.

Answer 7

If I remember correct US had two moon misssions.
You can land on moon now that you you know how to do it.
However it is a lot harder and a lot more expensive compared to this question.

It is not as easy as buying a second car or a summer home

Answer 8

the real question is, why did they go there in the first place

if you had a billion dollars, would you use it for a trip to the moon or for something else

a generation back, there was more boldness and daring, there was the desire to push back frontiers and do big things just assuming big things would come of it

now it is different
we're wimps
AND we need everything justified in dollars and cents

oh well, maybe the next generaton will have more heart and guts

Answer 9

They will. I heard they want to put like civilization on the moon....but that will take a while.

Answer 10

when man figures out how to exploit and profit on the moon they will go back