There was a time when space exploration happened in giant leaps, now were doing baby steps, what happened?

Answer 1

Lack of funding and lack of interest. After the Moon landings, there was a division between the people who remained interested in finding more about the Universe we live in and those who wanted to have a beer and wash their car. Lack of funding has reduced the bulk of NASA's programs to sending probes. Manned programs are for conducting scientific experiments in weightless conditions and preparing for more long-term missions such as Mars.

Why study Mars?

1. To find out if there was ever life on Mars besides bacterial life.

2. To learn what the climate of Mars was like in the past. It may have been warmer and wetter.

3. To learn about Martian geology.

4. As a starting point (besides the Moon) for future human exploration to other hospitable planets or moons in our system and possibly beyond if propulsion advancements are made. It will be a learning experience to show some dangerous things that might happen to people who are exploring such places.

http://library.thinkquest.org/11967/ask.html

Answer 2

Oh, I don't know. We are busy exploring Mars (the rovers) and Saturn (Cassini). These are pretty impressive feats, even if humans are not out there. As I write this, New Horizons is on its way to Pluto. It should do some really fascinating work there.

We're also building the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in South America, which will take in the entire sky every three days with a resolution comparable to that of the Hubble. And there is another space telescope in the works to search for earth sized planets around distant stars. NASA cancelled its TPF, an interferometer telescope which would have gone into orbit around the sun as far as Jupiter. It would have been able to resolve surface features on earth sized exoplanets.

We cancelled that project because the money was far better spent stirring up strife and turmoil in the middle east, I guess, and our president really isn't much into all that fancy science stuff.

Answer 3

I'm not sure why you think that. There's a hell of a big difference between going to the moon and building a habitat there, or between going to the moon and going to Mars.

Before we can do any such thing, experimentation has to be done to see how we can survive in those environments, let alone live comfortably in them. It's too expensive and dangerous to do by trial and error. It would lead to a big wast of lives and money.

There are semi-permanent habitats in Earth orbit, and the shuttles to 10-day missions, with the astronauts actually conducting productive work while they're up. The moon shots were flashy, but nothing like this was happening back then. It's all part of the process.

Answer 4

Going into space & going to the moon were a big deal, for finding A WAY to do it. Now we are doing more research to find out things like the BEST WAY to do stuff.

In order to mount a manned mission to Mars, we need to keep a crew alive for maybe 3 years on the way there, on the planet and on the way back.

There's a balance between the shortest journey reducing life support demands and the increase in energy, needed to make that shortest journey.

We have ground-based research on alternate propulsion such as light-based (pseudo light sail), ion-drive, scram-jet & others.

The one giant leap for a man, going to the moon is far smaller than sending a mission to Mars. And bear in mind, we (the USA) started resaerch on rocketry with Von Braun, etc. after WW2 and it took another almost 25 years to get to the moon.

We haven't had a president with the vision of JFK, to do what it takes to really initiate another grand era of space exploration (a trillion dollar bill for Iraq doesn't help. Sorry to be political. But it can't be ignored).

BUT, we are now seeing private enterprise taking reservations for flights into space. We may see commercial space habitats in another 20-30 years - maybe in time for me to retire there ;-) if I could afford it.

Answer 5

To put it simply and honestly: The Cold War is over.
The US spent a huge amount of money in "space stuff" to keep up and stay ahead of the Russians. Now that the Cold War is over, NASA does not have the budget that it once did. They are still doing great things, but not any huge things like putting a man on the moon. It is all relative though, every time we go up there or send out another probe is a great undertaking and an advancement...just not as dramatic as moon landings.

Answer 6

Depressing, isn't it? To get some idea of what it was like during those exciting times, see this movie: http://www.intheshadowofthemoon.com/
But I see interesting things starting to happen. The Chinese have sent men to space. A private company (Scaled Composites) has completed several successful suborbital space flights and a company called Virgin Galactic (started by Virgin Atlantic airlines owner Richard Branson) is building suborbital space craft based on the same design for the purpose of selling private people rides to space. And several other companies, especially SpaceX, are working on low cost orbital launch capability.

Answer 7

because those giant leaps were going to the moon and sending dozens of failed space probes.

but we are doing things that have never been done before. we actually have rovers on the moon, 15 years ago it wouldve taken dozens of tries to just get a rover transmitting for a few days. now we have probes going to pluto and beyond.

the reason were taking what you call 'baby steps' is because weve already gone to the moon and sent unmanned missions basically everywhere. so now the only thing to do is manned missions somewhere. and its alot harder to put a man on mars than it is to put on on the moon.

BTW, whats the point of putting a man on mars? can someone explain this to me? just to prove that it is indeed made of rock?

Answer 8

Check it out,We're human we will have urges the rest of our natural life,the only real problem in this situation is,are either one married?Then it should become an issue,otherwise leave,two consenting adults alone to experience the gift of being able to help each other to be,not alone,but together how ever long it is for.?No they shouldn't get fired for the only true exploring ,that man-n-woman ,have been doing since the beginning of time.

Answer 9

theres not much left we can do. you see the nearest star is 30 years away. so to travel there and back would take 60 years. scientists want to travel to mars because they beleive it has the same properties as earth did long ago but things that land on mars keep disappearing. there are many advancments but they dont involve people. they involve probes and telescopes. so its possible we can reach far off planets but just not yet.

Answer 10

Baby steps?

We have visited almost every planet, can now land our space ships like airplanes, are building a space station and have a hubble telescope that can almost see God taking a shower...we are spacing out my bro...read up. :)