Why have we not travled past the moon in person?

Question

We as humans have not went past the moon why not?

Answer 1

haven't you heard about all the space shuttle disasters? We can't even get the damn things off the ground. Soon, when we will have an unlimited amount of solar energy to use, and enormous fuel tanks will not be needed, we should have great new spacecraft designs that will revolutionize space travel.

Answer 2

Because the next closest planet is Mars and it takes about 6 months to get there and then you have to stay on it for over year to wait for Mars to get close to the earth again so you can return. The whole round trip is about 2 years. It is a very difficult engineering feat, of course we can do it, but the money and the motivation has to be there. We are returning to the moon to learn more about living in space for a long time, then we can focus on going to Mars. Ask your Congressmen and Senators to give more than 1% of the National Budget to NASA. I am an Aerospace Engineer and I am currently working on the Orion Spaceship which will return the USA to the Moon.

Answer 3

Technically we have, all the lunar landings (And the missions that just orbited the moon) went past the moon, around it then back to Earth again.
If you mean further then it would cost too much with no reason or backing, you need to use the gravitational forces or large bodies like the moon to slingshot you for your return journey to Earth. There are planned Mars landing by human, but your gonna have to wait at least 50 more years to see that.

Answer 4

1. Doing anything in space is super expensive.

2. Putting a man is space is twice as expensive.

There are certain innate stepping stones to putting man is space:

A. Earth orbit.

B. Moon orbit.

C. Moon landing.

D. Mars orbit.

E. Mars landing.

There is no point in sending man merely past the moon
to some arbitrary number of miles and bringing him back,
unless there is some worth while attainment.

Answer 5

Hey Christopher...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but we certainly did fly out in space beyond the Moon...in fact we went completely around the Moon. So we went out past the Moon by about 250 Miles.

Now as far as going out past that...let us get a little reasonable here...

The Moon is about 250,000 miles away. In your wildest guess, what is the next closest stop (other than Earth) ?
What I mean is "How many miles to the next possible stop?"
Please fill in your answer here: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .

Answer 6

There are plans on the drawing board to go to Mars. But, it is very, very expensive and our technology is not quite ready yet.

Besides, there seems to be no point in incurring the expense and danger of sending humans when our robot technology is so advanced, robots can now do almost as much as humans would be able to at much less expense since they don't need to eat, drink water or breathe air.

Answer 7

The answer to this question is not one of money, because governments have proven that cost is no barrier if there is a desire to do something. The main reason is the time it takes for travel to our next closest objects. I beleive we are more affraid of the physocological side effects suffered by those who venture on such a trip.

Answer 8

Past the moon? Lets try getting there first.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fakedmoonlandings/

Answer 9

Aside from skills needed, we would have to travel for months not days. And that would be destination Mars--even though it is further that Venus it is safer. Venus is poisonous where Mars is almost perfect.

Answer 10

Money,politics&slow space technology progress,