Why haven't we tried to land on the moon, again?

Question

Was the landing on the moon one big hoax?

Answer 1

The "moon race" was an extension of the cold war. Thus, it was really a battle for prestige between the USA and the USSR. The USA won. Since then, there has not been any political will to go back.

That's not to say that the six moon landings were unproductive. A lot of survey work, photography, and sample collection was done. Our understanding of the moon's geology (lunology?) would not be anywhere near what it is now without those missions.

BTW, there are two very simple and practical reasons to accept the fact that humans visited the moon six times.

First, think about the Watergate scandal. Just six people, including Richard Nixon, the President, failed to keep secret a simple burglary of a hotel room. How could thousands of people be persuaded to keep the secret of a fake moon mission.

Second, even if NASA could have fooled the general public with a fake moon mission, they could never have fooled the USSR's space agency or military intelligence agencies. Had it been a fake, the Soviets would have fixed their N-1 booster and gone to moon simply to shame the USA. Instead, they were beaten and they gave up.

Answer 2

To deny the efforts of Neil Armstrong is like denying the Holocaust. People in this country have no idea what it means to look into the future. They are more worried about the poor in this country rather than the significance of progress for the future. They sit in their kitchens, cooking dinner with their Teflon pans, and look at the moon thinking that it is too far away. They fail to realize that those pans would not be here without the Space program as are your sunglasses and computers...
I think this country forgot what it means to think big and dream even bigger.

Answer 3

After the Apollo missions NASA decided to go in a new direction. Turns out that the moon is simply a dead rock in space... surprisingly uninteresting. So NASA scrapped the program and began a new one, the Shuttle Program. Because of the Shuttle we have been able to launch hundreds of satellites, build a space station and launch and repair the Hubble. All of those things are far more interesting and more cost-effective than simply traveling back to a dead piece of rock.

Answer 4

The space shuttles are being retired by 2010 in order to field a new vehicle, the Orion, that is capable of taking humans to the moon and beyond. NASA projects them to get back there by 2018. Meanwhile, other countries have their own plans to launch to the moon, most namely is China.

Answer 5

The moon landing really happened, people who say otherwise are just kidding.

It is extremely expensive to land on the moon. The glory of being first is over, so no one is up to the challenge again.

Answer 6

We are going back:

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President Bush has unveiled a new vision for space exploration, calling on NASA to "gain a new foothold on the moon and to prepare for new journeys to the worlds beyond our own."
In a speech at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the President said that the "new course for America's space program" would give NASA a new focus and clear objectives for the future.
"We do not know where this journey will end," said Bush, "yet we know this: Human beings are headed into the cosmos." The President's plan for steady human and robotic exploration is based on a series of goals.
First, he said, America will "finish what it started," completing the International Space Station by 2010. Research on the station will be focused on studying the long-term effects of space travel on humans, preparing for the longer journeys of the future. After the Station is complete, the Space Shuttle would be retired, after nearly 30 years of duty.
Second, the United States will begin developing a new manned exploration vehicle, called the Crew Exploration Vechicle (CEV). The first craft to explore beyond Earth orbit since the Apollo days, the spacecraft would be developed and tested by 2008 and conduct its first manned mission no later than 2014. Though its main purpose would be to leave Earth orbit, the vehicle would also ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the shuttle is retired.
"Our third goal," Bush said, "is to return to the moon by 2020, as the launching point for missions beyond." He proposed sending robotic probes to the lunar surface by 2008, with a human mission as early as 2015, "with the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods of time."
Bush said lunar exploration could lead to new technologies or the harvesting of raw materials that might be turned into rocket fuel or breathable air.
"With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon," he said, "we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond."
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Bush made this announcement on January 14th of 2004. This was probably the result of China and Russia both announcing trips to the moon within the next 20-30 years.

Answer 7

That's because the moon isn't as interesting as the earth- as concluded from early discoveries. So who would be bothered to pay astronauts millions of bucks to go to somewhere less fascinating than where they are now?

Answer 8

Coz we never landed on moon, that was a total fake

Answer 9

Would you spend hundreds of dollars to make two seperate trips across the country to see the Plymouth Rock ?? It's a big rock, thats all...

Answer 10

Probably because we've never been, with the technology we got now we should be able to, I can't see how all them years ago they could have done it in that Button Moon bake beans tin rocket which Mr. Spoon owned...