Why hasnt Nasa been back to the moon in 38 years?

Question

they go into space all the time

how much did it cost the first time

Answer 1

well there's nothing on moon except dust and wind and american flag. the americans have fulfilled kennedy's wish and now they are trying to fulfill bush's wish

Answer 2

Short version--no funding. The Apollo program cost about $24 billion overall. The lunar missions cost about$350-400 million each. Multiply that by about 5 toget an approximation in today's dollars. It will be far cheaper in the future--we have much better technology.

As to why ther's been no funding for going back to the moon--here's a brief timeline that illustrates what happpened:
>early 70s. NASA suspended lunar mssions--temporarily they thought--to develop aa reuseable shuttle. With that lunar missions could be mounted that would be better equipped, safer, and much cheaper.
>1972--a)NASA was forced to abondon their original shuttle design as a result of Congressional budget cutting--despite warnings the altered design would be less reliable and cost more to operate
>1982 The Reagan administration ended flight testing on the shuttle after 2 flights, orderning NASA to begin operational flights.
>1986 Challenger explosion. That, spiraling costs, and continued cuts in NASA funding, made it clear the shuttle was not viable as a support system for lunar missions, orbital manufacturing, and othe rprograms. Those were abandoned. NASA began work on developing a next-generation spacecraft.
>Starting in 1995, when the GOP took over Congress, they canceled every advanced spacecraft program NASA had.
>2003--the Columbia disaster. NASA again proposed building an advanced next-generation shuttle. The Bush administration rejected this; instead
>NASA was given $1 billion (later cut) and told to develop a replacement spacraft using money from cancelled shuttle flights. Since there' s no funding for the R&D needed, NASA is using reworked shuttle systems--the solid rocket boosters, shuttle main engine design, and external fuel tank technology--to build a small, semi-resueable system, bu tit only has an updated version of the old Apollow capsule for a "rbital spacecraft."
>That's why the push to finish the space station (what parts of it haven't been cancelled)-after 2010, the US will no longer have the launch capability to put the systems into orbit.
>Bush did announce a "return to the moon program" in 2004 slated to take 14 years (we did Apollo in 8, without today's technology). There are design studies underway--but the program has never been funded. NASA has already had to push the target date back to 2020.

Meanwhile--there are at least 10 nations now with advanced space programs--several with manned programs and plans to go to the moon. The US still has the best technology--but we are falling behind rapidly.

Answer 3

Nasa hasn't been back to the moon because there wasting to much money building the internation space station it would actually be easier to build a base on the moon but i guess Nasa thinks that a space station is better they hopefully will build one on moon when they get done with space station in about 2-3 years.

Answer 4

Lack of money and lack of will.

I don't buy the argument that we didn't find anything and that there's nothing to learn on the Moon. We learned plenty, especially with Apollo 17, which was the _only_ Apollo mission to have a trained scientist on board. The Moon has roughly the same surface area as the Earth, if you subtract the oceans, so there is tons more to be learned by exploring it. It's as if the exploration of the New World stopped after Columbus' first few missions.

Answer 5

We had achieved what we planned to on the time. the concentration of the area software became into replaced to construction a reusable spacecraft (the shuttles) and the area Stations. Now, the area shuttles are going to be retired, with the aid of fact the concentration is changing returned. we are able to return to the Moon in 2020 and set up a Lunar base. that's a factor of project Constellation. we are able to be employing new modular spacecraft: the Orion group capsula, the Ares launchers, and the Altair lander. This project additionally features a projected manned Mars venture sometime after 2030.

Answer 6

That's a good question. My only assumption is that there's not much else to search for on the moon. We went there, there were rocks, we came home. No reason to spend billions of dollars to look at rocks... unless they're in Iraq...
Hard to talk about the budget without...well...you know...ok

lol

Answer 7

It is an expensive trip and there is o reason to go back. They didn't find anything worth selling.

Answer 8

There's no real financial -or- scientific incentive to do so.

Doug

Answer 9

Money and politics.