Next moon landing scheduled for 2018..?

Question

I am not among the conspiracy theorists who doubt the fact that we landed on the moon amost 40 years ago, but I do find it interesting that they won't be able to do it again for just over ten years. Why? If they had the technology to do it back then, what's the delay now? Funding, maybe? Any ideas are appreciated!

Answer 1

The delay now is that the technology used then is a) out of date, and b) dismantled.


Contrary to popular belief, you cannot just make something that was made decades ago again. The construction of the Saturn V rocket required highly specialised tooling that was specific to that rocket and had no other function. When the Saturn V went out of production the tooloing was dismantled. It was large, cumbersome, and would have required a ludicrous amount of space to store it and time to maintain it considering it was not going to be used again in the forseeable future. (Boeing actually has programs of maintenance and suchlike simply for the purpose of keeping tooling and technology current, even though it is not being used to produce aircraft components at the moment, so that they do not suffer these delays should the component ever become useful again).

Without the tooling a Saturn V cannot be made. Even if it could, why would it be made again now? It's forty years old. Technology has improved. Better things are available, so we should use them. That means redesigning the rocket entirely.

And a final point is that the US is not racing to the Moon, and national prestige is not such a significant aspect this time around. NASA can afford to be more leisurely about its progress.

Answer 2

Partly funding, and partly because the technology is being built again from the ground up. There is a lot move official oversight this time, too.

Answer 3

They don't have the 28 billion dollars comitted like they did back then. This is all compounded by new NASA safety standards. If Apollo had to live by today's rules, they never would have left the ground.