Why Havent We Gone to the Moon Again
Information technology'south 2019. Why Haven't Humans Gone Dorsum to the Moon Since the Apollo Missions?
In hindsight, Apollo 11 was even more exceptional than we thought.
NASA put two astronauts on the moon on July twenty, 1969, merely eight years after President John F. Kennedy announced the audacious goal and a mere 12 years after the dawn of the Infinite Age.
Five more crewed missions hitting the gray dirt after Apollo 11, the last of them, Apollo 17, touching down in December 1972.
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Humanity hasn't been back to Earth's nearest neighbor since (though many of our robotic probes have). NASA has mounted multiple crewed moon projects since Apollo, including the aggressive Constellation Plan in the mid-2000s, but none of them take gone the distance.
So what was unlike almost Apollo? It was incubated in a very item environs, experts say — the Common cold War space race with the Soviet Marriage.
"This was state of war by another means — information technology really was," Roger Launius, who served as NASA's main historian from 1990 to 2002 and wrote the recently published book "Apollo's Legacy" (Smithsonian Books, 2019), told Space.com. "And nosotros have non had that since."
The Soviet Union fired the first few salvos in this proxy state of war. The nation launched the starting time-ever satellite, Sputnik 1, in October 1957 and put the starting time person in infinite, Yuri Gagarin, in Apr 1961. These shows of technological might worried U.S. officials, who wanted a big win of their ain. And they believed putting the first boots on the moon would do the trick.
This wasn't viewed as empty flexing. The United States wanted, among other things, to show the world that the future lay with its political and economic systems, not those of its communist rival.
"The Apollo days were not, fundamentally, well-nigh going to the moon," John Logsdon, a professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University'due south Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C., told Space.com. "They were nigh demonstrating American global leadership in a zero-sum Cold State of war competition with the Soviet Wedlock."
So NASA got the resources it needed to pull off its moon shot. And those resources were immense — about $25.viii billion for Apollo from 1960 through 1973, or near $264 billion in today'southward dollars. During the mid-1960s, NASA got about 4.five% of the federal budget — 10 times greater than its current share.
The stakes haven't been most as high since the end of the Cold War, so subsequent moon projects haven't enjoyed such sustained support. (They probable as well suffered from some been-there-done-that sentiment.) For case, the Constellation Program, which took shape nether President George Due west. Bush, was canceled in 2010 by President Barack Obama.
Obama directed NASA to instead send astronauts to a near-Globe asteroid. But President Donald Trump nixed that plan in 2017, putting the bureau back on grade for the moon.
NASA initially targeted 2028 for the start crewed lunar landing since the Apollo days. Just this past March, Vice President Mike Pence instructed NASA to get it done past 2024.
The accelerated timeline might actually brand this newest moon shot more achievable, NASA Ambassador Jim Bridenstine has said, citing the "political take chances" that doomed Constellation and other programs.
Political hazard exists "because priorities change, budgets alter, administrations alter, Congresses change," Bridenstine said May 14 in a town-hall address to NASA employees.
"And then, how practise we retire as much political risk every bit possible?" he added. "Nosotros accelerate the program. Basically, the shorter the plan is, the less time it takes, the less political adventure nosotros endure. In other words, we tin accomplish the stop state."
The 2024 landing is office of a program chosen Artemis, which aims to build up a long-term, sustainable human presence at and around the moon. The main goal is to lay the foundation for crewed trips to the ultimate human-spaceflight destination: Mars. NASA aims to put boots on the Red Planet quondam in the 2030s.
- The Apollo Moon Landings: How They Worked (Infographic)
- Lunar Legacy: 45 Apollo Moon Mission Photos
- How the Apollo eleven Moon Landing Worked (Infographic)
Mike Wall's volume about the search for alien life, " Out There " (Grand Primal Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate ), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook .
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Source: https://www.space.com/after-apollo-why-not-go-back-to-the-moon.html
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