Why has no one walked on the moon since 1972?

Question

Humans love having knowledge of everything; wouldn't they have wanted to send people all over the moon to perhaps draw maps or find out as much as they can about it? Why have they not had any people walk on the moon since 1972?

Answer 1

Because the original space race was competition between the US & the USSR. The primary point of the space race was to test & develop technology for ICBMs. Secondarily since the USSR launcked the first satellite & astronaut, The US has to beat them in the monumental achievement of landing on the Moon. Once we did successfully beat them a few times over, The Cold War took priority, & NASA funding plumeted.

NASA is working on getting us back to the Moon by 2020, & hopes to establish a perminant Moon base at the southern pole by 2024.

Answer 2

Ther are three main reasons:
1. The astronauts who landed on the moon landed near the equator only. They found nothing there!!!. So they came to a conclusion that moon is good for nothing!
But later satellites that crossed moon for various missions showed the possibility of eistence of something near the poles and the other side of the moon!!!
2. Money was a great constraint. Even today it costs around $20000/kg to launch a mass into near earth orbit. Think about moon which is hundred times the distance and about the nass of the space craft
3. The desire to land on the moon and the eploration were carried out in red hot due to the cold war between USA and USSR. It was a prestigous issue at those times.
USA wanted to conquer the moon since USSR was the first to launch a satellite, send a man and a woman to moon, construct a space station and walk in space. They had no other go than to aim at moon.
After 1991 USSR is gone and so were NASAs activities. The NASA slowed down actually after USSR was split .

Answer 3

It is just too expensive and there is nothing on the Moon valuable enough to justify going. The awesome coolness of it is not enough to make the tax payers pony up the hundred plus billion dollars needed (adjusted for inflation from the 25 billion that Apollo cost) and it is too expensive for private people to do on their own.

Lest you think new technology should make it cheaper now, I ask you, how much cheaper is a car now compared to 1972? Not cheaper at all! It is more expensive! It is only electronics that have gotten cheaper and better, not cars or airplanes or rockets.

Answer 4

Going to the moon is so big a project that it won't work (politically) unless the whole country is behind it. In the late 50's and 60's, we had the Cold War, and there was wide popular support for "beating the Russians" to the moon.

Once we had "won" the space race, interest began to wane. There were still many people (myself included) who thought we should have continued the same pace of exploration and gone ahead on to Mars; but for many people, it was enough that we had "proven our superiority" over the Soviets, and they didn't really care any more. Also, there were many other pressing social issues to worry about in the early 70's, and it seemed hard to justify spending money on space exploration when so much else was going on.

Space exploration on that scale requires a grand vision for the future, and most people were preoccupied with the problems of the present.

Answer 5

You'd think, huh....

But no - congress halted funding of the Apollo program, and cut the number of missions from 10 down to 7. (And one of those, Apollo 13, had to abort their landing attempt).

Going to the moon is expensive. People need to be convinced to spend the kind of money needed for such a trip; and frankly - Congress has been too concerned with their next election than the course of manned space flight.

Answer 6

Different priorities. A bad decision to put a lot of money into the shuttle which can't do moon and stop development of other methods.
We are supposed to be going back to the moon and part of it is planning and development for going to Mars, which may or may not be a good idea.

Answer 7

It's a lot more practical to draw maps using a satellite than from ground level.
These days it's also more practical (and a lot cheaper) to send an automatic or remote-controlled probe (kind of like the two Mars rovers).

The Moon does not serve a lot of purposes other than looking pretty in our sky, being the main cause for tides, and being a giant potential source of ore.
I guess the next step of exploring the moon would be to set up a permanent colony there, but I don't believe there is much point to send anyone out there other than to start that process.
Such a colony would serve as a good stepping stone for setting up shop on Mars, but I wonder which would be cheaper between sending a group of men to Mars from Earth or from the Moon (counting the expense of setting up the necessary facilities on the Moon)...

Answer 8

There is a limit to what any country is willing to spend on space exploration. Decisions were made to build a permanent space station instead of returning to the moon because this was seen as the best use of funds available. If you have a few hundred billion lying around I'm sure a new program could be started. LOL Actually a mission is in the works to be accomplished prior to 2020. See link below.

Answer 9

It's too expensive. In any case, if American's loved knowledge, they would first make sure that kids get a great education. And, as you might know firsthand, not even that is happening. We are way more interested in bombing other nations. Seems to be more fun.

Answer 10

Because the illuminati know they could not fool us these days into believing man walked on the moon