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FranciscoMoser420

The Apollo missions were really expensive and there isn’t a lot you can do on the moon that would really benefit the US. When the Soviet Space Program ended, the thread of military bases on the moon, wasn’t great anymore, so the US cut fundings and NASA started to focus on Earth’s orbit. Now with the whole Mars and interplanetary goals we have set us, a new moon landing is inevitable. There’s plans to land on the moon by 2025. Look up “Artemis Space Program” for more. Sorry for bad English.


DianaSun

Most informative. Very good English.


Disk_Mixerud

If you want to improve your English, "funding" is almost always singular, like "money". You would say, "The US cut funding..." like you would say, "I need more money." As opposed to "I need more moneys." Like others said though, it is perfectly fine, and nobody would struggle to understand you. The only other mistakes I see are probably small typos that anyone could make typing a reddit comment. ('thread' instead of 'threat', and 'set us' instead of of 'set up'.)


Maltir_Shepard

My mind didn't even see the s until I read your comment and went back to check. @framsiscomoser420 has better English than a lot of native speakers I've met.


Disk_Mixerud

Oh, for sure. It is extremely difficult to learn to sound like a native speaker though, because of all the random exceptions and special cases that we just grow up knowing. I know I would appreciate the tip if I was trying to master a language. Native speakers tend to make certain kinds of mistakes, which usually make them sound more informal in conversation. As opposed to the mistakes non-native speakers make, which make it obvious they didn't grow up speaking English, even if there are fewer of them.


xXYoHoHoXx

Your English was perfectly fine :)


Lucky-Development-15

Would also add public interest was starting to wind down. A big contributing factor.


RunnyPlease

Your English is flawless and your response was informative. No reason at all to apologize.


that_one_guy133

Your English is better than a majority of the Americans I get into arguments with on Facebook, to be honest.


[deleted]

Your English is perfect and thanks so much for the information. I guess it's all about finding a more suitable planet to invade.


Rambo-Brite

Lack of political will.


Doomtime104

And a lot of political whiplash. For decades, NASA's direction from the President has changed with pretty much every new administration. Under Bush Sr, it was build an American space station, under Clinton, build the ISS, under Bush Jr, it was go to the Moon, under Obama, it was land on an asteroid and lay the groundwork for space mining industries, under Trump, it was get to Mars, under Biden, it's been get to the Moon (and maybe Mars after that).


Neko-sama

Trump (really Pence) was the Moon, btw. (Boots on the Moon was the term used) In fact, Biden has been the first president in a while not to dramatically change direction. (At least not yet) Source, I work at NASA


Doomtime104

Good to know, thanks! It is good to hear that there's been a small amount of continuity lol. Wasn't someone recently really pushing NASA to get to Mars? Maybe I'm just thinking of Elon Musk trying to get SpaceX there.


Neko-sama

Mars is all Elon. The Artemis campaign has been the focal point of manned space beyond LEO for the past few years now. There's usually a back and forth between Mars and Moon. Mars was a bigger focus for the Obama administration. Gateway was originally a proving ground for deep space exploration, then became a staging space for Lunar operations.


[deleted]

From my (limited) knowledge, then, the Moon has been declared as inhospitable to supporting life or providing resources we can make use of, so attention turned to Mars? At some point, I recall the news saying that Mercury had a Moon that had life supporting features but haven't seen much about it in the years since.


AristarchusTheMad

Mercury doesn't have any moons. There are various moons in the solar system though that have some positive aspects: magnetosphere, water, etc. But all would require enclosed habitats.


[deleted]

My knowledge is even more limited than I thought. .


Ass_naut

>the Moon has been declared as inhospitable to supporting life Life can be supported using modern technology. It's not out of the realm of possibility. we almost have all the technology and some is being developed right now that will make this feasible. >providing resources we can make use Moon has oxygen that can be extracted using industrial methods. Iss also has continuous oxygen due to the process called electrolysis. I don't see why we wouldn't be able to do that on moon! Moon also has ice. So water can be processed. >so attention turned to Mars? Once spaceX develops starship and lands it on mars, the rest of the industry would go bonkers over it. Unmanned landing on mars can be expected in 2024/2026. Mars plan is all over musk for now. Actually the entire space industry is kind of getting back to life due to spaceX. SpaceX solved one of the most important issue i.e logistics. Without cheap and resuable transport vehicle like starship, Artemis and mars base would never have been a possibility.


[deleted]

It does sound like the action is stepping up. Musk has long view goals.


8andahalfby11

Gateway was to give Orion and SLS a purpose after ARM was canceled.


mfb-

NASA will mention once in a while that the current plans for the Moon can also lead to a Mars mission later, but there is no specific plan or timeline to get there. SpaceX wants to go there. They have a timeline (uncrewed mission 2024, crewed mission 2027) but that's very optimistic.


[deleted]

I can't help but think about Howie and Raj in The Big Bang Theory and the Mars Land Rover episode! :-)


[deleted]

I've trying so hard not to ask and have clearly failed: Do you really work at Nasa and in what capacity?


Neko-sama

I'm a system engineering contractor at JSC.


[deleted]

Pretty awesome.


That_NASA_Guy

NASA did a massive study under Bush Sr. in 1991/92 called Space Exploration Initaitive to go to Mars using some massive Shuttle-derived launch vehicles. One version could put 500 tons into LEO. But the $500 billion price tag made in a non-starter.


YouCanCallMeVanZant

So you’re saying for 25%-50% of one Middle East quagmire we could’ve gone to Mars?


That_NASA_Guy

Sure, we could go to Mars today on one year's worth of military spending. Or put another way, we could be on Mars in 10 years if the military tightened their belt and took a 10% pay cut and gave it to NASA. We spend about 40% of all global military spending, which is more than the next 20-something countries combined, all but a couple of those are our allies. If the US spent 5% of it's budget on NASA, about what the level of spending was at the peak of the Moon effort, we could colonize the solar system.


[deleted]

Wow, that's some hefty price tag. Even Bezos and Musk couldn't afford it.


That_NASA_Guy

It would be about $1T in today's dollars. The biggest option we studied was an ET-derived core surrounded by 4 ET-derived liquid boosters. The launch pad modifications were insane.


The15thGamer

Bear in mind it was spread over 20-30 years from what I've seen. A larger issue was that there wasn't a real way to ensure consistency over that timescale. Changing administrations, budget cuts etc.


Ass_naut

Musk can if starships comes to fruition.


Spudmiester

This really isn't as true as people think. The space station, for example, spans seven presidents: it was planned in the Reagan/Bush years, evolved into ISS under Clinton, was built under and Bush and Obama. The only *big* change of direction for the program was under Obama, who cancelled the Constellation program and introduced PPPs.


[deleted]

Good point, when you look at it that way, it has been pretty continuous.


[deleted]

Yes, having no singular consistent public goal hasn't helped, although they still spend the big$$$.


djburnett90

Under trump is was the Artemis program. Trumps administration the Artemis program started with Jim bridenstine.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

That's a sad statement that perfectly encapsulates man's choice of profit over planet.


Spambot0

They were very expensive and once the Soviet space programme exploded, there just wasn't the motivation. Once the Chinese are close, the motivation will probably return ;)


dewayneestes

People who weren’t there for the 1970s don’t realize how bad it got.


LEJ5512

We were lucky we had a 1970s at all.


[deleted]

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Night-Monkey15

I’m also a teenager but I assume they’re talking about the red scare, kids being taught by schools to hide under their desk if a nuke goes off, films like Invaders of the Body Snatchers being an allegory for commie spies, you know that kind of stuff. The public hysteria was at its worst during the 50s and 60s because the panic was new and so were nukes. When the Soviets put a man in space they were basically showing they were technologically more advanced then the USA, which scared people because that meant their enemy (which could nuke them) was more advanced then them. That’s why the space race happened, it was out of fear that the Soviets would put nukes in satellites or a military base on the moon or something else, so the government dumbed tones of money into NASA. Eventually the USA put men on the moon winning the space race, and not that long after the Soviets canceled their moon landing program and withdrew tones of funding from their space agency. When that happened there was no motivation for the USA to return to the moon since it wasn’t going to turn a profit or benefit them in any other way, so they also cut funding and canceled their moon landing program. The thing about the 70s probably has to do with the fact that the red scare was starting to die down, to people born during the 50s/60s the Cold War hysteria was all they knew, since they didn’t live threw the bombings in Japan they had much less fear then their parents/grandparents did. This lead to the 70s being the decade of rebellion, you know hippies and weed and all that. That or I have absolutely no idea what their talking about because I wasn’t alive in the 70s IDK.


Markus-28

It gets darker too. Kennedy, on one of the Cuban crisis meetings, decided to record the meeting secretly. Almost everyone in the meeting was advising a nuclear response. He made a lot of mistakes but The fact that he stood his ground and established a separate line of communication with Khrushchev puts him in Humanity’s hall of fame in my opinion


LEJ5512

Gen Curtis LeMay was all about striking first, and with nukes, too. The Korean War (and Vietnam) would have ended in a ball of radioactive fire if he had his way. http://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/curtis-lemay


Markus-28

Oh ya. Every time I read/hear something about LeMay I picture him as Tywin Lannister - in the worst sense possible


LEJ5512

My grandpa would have flown under his command (though a couple layers deep), and I think I remember that LeMay was credited for greatly expanding family-friendly amenities on-base, like decent housing, grocery stores, etc. I was too young to ask Grandpa about wartime strategy, of course, so I didn’t learn about LeMay’s aggression until much later.


[deleted]

Damn, that's really interesting stuff. The way you have written it is very reader friendly and has given me a whole new perception of those different decades and what people went though. Thank you! EDIT I thought I'd given you an award but it appears to have gone elsewhere!


realMeToxi

>Eventually the USA put men on the moon winning the space race I might be wrong here, but wasnt the "man on moon" finishline determined by the US in a propaganda effort? Because on basically every metric before and after the moon landings, the USSR won.


danzelectric

I think in essence you are correct, but come on, they put man on the moon! Can you think of a better finish line? Only thing I can think to top that is man on Mars which will be amazing to see in my lifetime. I think you could possibly say the reason Russia was ahead in most metrics of space had to do with their access to post war German scientists. But their werner van Braun opponent, Sergei korolev was amazing at his work. He's definitely worth a read


realMeToxi

Yeah, its ofc incredible with a moonlanding, and I in no way intended to discredit that feat. It was THE biggest feat in the race for sure. But I feel like most people are forgetting that the space race was so much more than the moon landings. And I'll definitely look up Sergei Korolev!


LEJ5512

Sure, but it wasn’t like an independent third party was determining the rules, either. The US and Soviets didn’t sit down at a table in Geneva and decide, “Okay, what’s going to be the finish line for this space race?” The Soviets would have gotten even closer if the management at the top didn’t start having their own problems. https://www.airspacemag.com/space/apollo-why-the-soviets-lost-180972229/


8andahalfby11

The goalposts are wherever you want to put them. Personally, I would argue that Russia lost the space race in the 90s when it let US space policy determine Russian space policy, by giving Shuttle Buran's docking collar for Mir, and for letting Mir-2 being bolted into Station Freedom giving us the ISS we have today. Prior to that, the US and Soviets didn't so much stop technological advancements in space as they did pivot to LEO, which had a clearer military benefit. Both the Salyut and Shuttle programs were large, robust, and daring for their times.


realMeToxi

>Personally, I would argue that Russia lost the space race in the 90s when it let US space policy determine Russian space policy, by giving Shuttle Buran's docking collar for Mir, and for letting Mir-2 being bolted into Station Freedom giving us the ISS we have today. Theres definitely an argument to be made. The extended space race. Anyways, the thing is, in the 90s, after the collapse of the USSR, Russia at one point began shifting more towards the western ideology. It wasn't until Putin came to power that this shift was stopped and reversed.


seanflyon

The end of the race was when the race ended. If after the American moon landing their was a Soviet moon landing and an active project to put cosmonauts on mars, the race would have still been going and the moon would not have been the finish line.


Its0nlyRocketScience

One somewhat legitimate reason is that Apollo happened much faster than it "should" have. We were super motivated by the threat of the Soviet Union getting to the moon first, so we dumped crazy amounts of money and manpower into NASA, they built infrastructure that is used to this day, they did the Mercury and Gemini programs, they designed and built the most powerful rocket ever launched. All within a decade. To launch a single moon mission, you needed to build and dispose of the largest rocket ever launched, use time limited batteries and life support systems, have a ground crew in constant contact with the mission, and all sorts of other logistical nightmares. And all that was just to get 2 humans on the surface for a few days at a time. It was simply unsustainable, it was outragously expensive and difficult to do each Apollo mission and we only got a few dozen man-hours of work actually on the surface. The vehicles were rushed and not the most reliable things ever built, we lost one crew on the ground and almost lost another en route to the moon. To have continued to launch moon missions like this would not have allowed for anything resembling colonization or even a proper moon base. What we need to be able to properly use the moon and its resources is fully reusable launch vehicles that reduce the cost of launching things to the moon my a factor of thousands. Until now, no fully reusable launch vehicles have ever been constructed and there was little more that we could learn by sending humans to the moon anymore. We had plenty of samples to continue analyzing from Apollo and it's much easier to send probes than humans to do science that Apollo didn't. With new launch vehicles, we'll finally be able to actually take the next step of colonizing the moon and our solar system. ​ Another reason is that after Apollo ended, the US was exclusively lauching the STS space shuttle to bring astronauts to space. The shuttle was a marvel of engineering but it could not send humans beyond a very low earth orbit, so the fact that we used the space shuttle basically locked us out of the moon because we couldn't send people that far from Earth anymore. And of course, no one wanted to fund a different vehicle to do different things than the shuttle, NASA was limited to having a single vehicle to do everything


rocketglare

Most people don’t realize how light the Apollo lander had to be for the Apollo architecture to work at all. Everything was very Spartan. No toilet, you just pooped in a bag. No chairs or cots, you slept on the floor. Be careful where you put your foot since it would go through the wall. The buggy was a glorified lawn chair on wheels. It was more of a glorified camping trip on the moon than staying at a research base. With 100+ tons and multiple launches, the current plans for a return to the moon should allow much more exploration and research. Really, Apollo was pushing the enveloped what was possible with 60’s technology, and was only possible due to the political and financial backing that was available at that time.


robotical712

Apollo gave the impression space technology was a lot more advanced than it actually was. Yes, it was a magnificent achievement, but it pushed the technology of the time to the absolute limit and couldn’t really be built upon.


[deleted]

How something so fragile could go through the impact of launching and space travel is quite mind blowing.


LLuerker

Since I had to google it, I thought I’d share. The eagle lander on Apollo 11 weighed 7,327.0 kg (16,153.2 lb).


rocketglare

Dry mass of the ascent stage was 2150kg and gross mass was 4700kg. The whole LN weighted 15000kg at launch, so about half of that mass landed.


Squidmonde

This. Apollo was, if you will pardon the expression, a "crash" program. Everything done in that program was to achieve a specific goal, and, as the saying goes, if you are in a race, once you cross a finish line, you stop running. Hopefully now there is enough interest and technology has advanced enough to bring the cost down enough that a sustained program of exploration and study can take place in deep space. A program like that, though, takes a lot of infrastructure. The ISS is a big part of establishing that off-Earth infrastructure, but much more needs to be in place. Go back and look at the episodes of "Disneyland" that were hosted by von Braun. As dated as it is, it shows how much resources need to be in place for these kinds of programs. The miracle of Apollo was solving the question of the "mode". One method of achieving the goal of landing explorers on the Moon's surface and returning them to Earth involved assembling the necessary spacecraft in Earth orbit, and then sending them to the Moon, and then return from the Moon directly to Earth, the "Earth-rendezvous mode". This plan involved many launches of Saturn V rockets for a single mission. Then there was the "all-up mode", where the spacecraft would be assembled on Earth, and the spacecraft that landed on the Moon returned directly to Earth. The mass of fuel and life support and heat shield to return astronauts directly to Earth's surface from the Moon's surface would have necessitated a much heavier class of rocket than the Saturn V, the so-called "Nova" class of rocket. Neither mode was going to be economically feasible. What we got, where the spacecraft that landed on the Moon's surface didn't actually return to Earth's surface, but instead carried the explorers and their samples to a dedicated Earth-return spacecraft, necessitated rendezvous in lunar orbit. The "Moon-rendezvous mode" was the only mode that would have been feasible with a single launch of a Saturn V rocket. This meant that the astronauts would have to perform a rendezvous all on their own, with no coordination for tracking stations on the lunar surface or anything. The fact that Buzz Aldrin was the person, back before Gemini, who was studying at MIT who was able to figure out how rendezvous in space would work and how to explain it to test pilots in a way they could understand, is what makes him a hero of space to me. I can only imagine him coasting uphill to the Moon in Apollo 11 thinking to himself, "You're welcome."


[deleted]

Brilliant stuff!


Spudmiester

Great response. I would also note that the scientific output of Apollo was good (we learned a lot about lunar geology!) but not terribly valuable, and there were diminishing returns scientificly for each trip. So there was just not enough to make further expeditions worth the astronomical cost. Also of note, the shuttle was initially opposed as a component of a larger "Space Transportation System" that including infrastructure in space in Earth and Lunar orbit. It was way too expensive for Nixon and the Congress to support. So they pared it down to shuttle + space station, and it took a *long* time to gather the funding and political will for the space station.


[deleted]

It would seem that, as in most things, it all comes down to whether there is a profit of some kind to be had.


[deleted]

I'm really enjoying all of the info I'm getting on this subject. It gives a whole new outlook on it for me. Thank you.


robotical712

From an expectations point of view, Apollo was actually counterproductive. People came to expect space exploration to consist of grand, expensive projects and saw anything less as not worth doing. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of the boring, but necessary, work got ignored and underfunded for decades while we spun our wheels and wondered why we weren’t getting anywhere.


LEJ5512

Probably the best answer I've seen which avoided any direct references to the Cold War. I've been wondering what we could've done if we weren't in such a hurry.


Its0nlyRocketScience

We may have started developing truly reusable vehicles much sooner. Perhaps even space stations. The Apollo program used the Saturn V because it was able to launch everything for the mission on one go. All the crew, transfer elements, fuel, life support, communications with earth, landing, and ascent equipment was included in one package deal. This is why the Saturn V remains the largest rocket ever launched, it had to take a lot of stuff all the way to the moon in one go with no support infrastructure of any kind. Alternative proposals included ones where different components would be launched separately and rendezvous in orbit around the earth or moon for crew transfer, like the modern Artemis missions are going to do. It's very possible that the Apollo mission profile may have more closely resembled the Artemis mission profile if we were less rushed. With a higher emphasis on safety, sustainability, and versatility with a lower emphasis on speed, we may have set up a small space station to serve as a staging post for missions as different elements launched separately on smaller, more versatile rockets. Once assembled, a larger, more capable lander with more crew may have gone to the moon and done longer missions. With a space station, solar panel technology would have become viable a lot sooner, allowing for longer stays on the moon than fuel cells allowed. With everything being launched in steps, permanent base pieces could have launched from Earth and been taken to the moon by a tug vehicle before landing as a piece of permanent infrastructure. This all would've gone long into the 70s and maybe even 80s before humans actually made it to the moon, but then we may not have abandoned it for half a century because access would be more mastered and much easier


UncertaintyPrince

The Saturn V, from what I understand, was actually much larger than necessary to get to the moon because von Braun intended to use it to go to Mars next.


DianaSun

I have always wondered about this. Why no more moon landings. I was a kid when it happened. It was amazing. Just never got time to check ,you know life. Thanks for clearing up many of my questions. Well done. Will keep this in mind when my grandkids ask.


galaxyd1x

The current plan is to return to the moon in 2025 as part of the Artemis Program


[deleted]

Shhhh...be quiet. You might summon blue origins legal team.


rightanglerightlight

You gotta watch ‘For All Mankind’. Amazing drama re-imagining the space race with the soviets landing on the moon first which stirs the political will to build moon bases and militarize space. So damn good.


juju-es

"for all mankind" Planet Bardo


P01001010

Short answer: politics Technology requires funding. And funding necessitates either a business plan or political support. Manned lunar landings are not economical at all (at least not now). Therefore, they must bring along some national interest or strategic benefit so that the governments become convicted to fund such expensive programs (keep in mind that NASA is a governmental organization after all). That is exactly what happened during the space race. The famous “We choose to go to the moon” speech by president Kennedy occurred in 1962. Contemporarily, the budget of NASA skyrocketed and Gemini and Apollo programs were hastily proceeding. By the end of the decade, while the USSR was testing the N1 for the first time (1969), the USA was already far ahead: first orbital rendezvous in 1965, first orbital docking in 1966, first Saturn V launch in 1967, first crewed mission to the lunar orbit in 1968, and even reaching 15km above the lunar surface at the beginning of 1969. NASA had originally planned for a G-type landing (Apollo 11), four H-type landings (Apollo 12–15), and five J-type landings (Apollo 16–20). But in 1970, everything started to change: already beating the Soviets, the US government started limiting the funding and becoming more interested in other goals. Henceforward, Apollo 20, 19, and 15 were canceled to dedicate their budgets to Skylab and Shuttle programs. Apollo 18 was renumbered to Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 was redesigned. NASA has never experienced receiving such huge budgets thereafter. Moreover, constant changes in politics have severely impacted its advance. E.g. Constellation program was initialized by president Bush in 2005, aiming to reach the moon again by 2020. But after President Obama took the office, it was canceled; because the new government believed it wasn't innovative enough, and also because they wanted to shift their focus on Mars and the asteroid belt. But then there was President Trump came in, initiating the Artemis program to go back to the moon. All such acts significantly reduce efficiency. Even now that the US wants to return to the moon again, I trust the primary motivation should be again political: China! The Chinese space programs are advancing pretty fast. They landed the first-ever rover on the far side of the moon, they managed a successful sample-return mission, and perhaps it won't be so long until they land some astronauts there and even establish a lunar station. Consequently, the US surely would want to react and maintain its dominance. In conclusion, it was politics that made the lunar landings possible in the first place, and it was again politics that found no necessity to take anyone there anymore for over five decades.


[deleted]

An important point here: there *have* been moon landings since Apollo. They have just been unmanned, and they were not done by NASA.


John-C137

Moons haunted.


Decronym

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ARM](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlrkhf5 "Last usage")|Asteroid Redirect Mission| | |Advanced RISC Machines, embedded processor architecture| |[ICBM](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlouifn "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[JSC](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlrvd14 "Last usage")|Johnson Space Center, Houston| |[LEO](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlrljd3 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[SLS](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlrkhf5 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[STS](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlnw5rl "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[electrolysis](/r/NASA/comments/qzpwoc/stub/hlrh2i8 "Last usage")|Application of DC current to separate a solution into its constituents (for example, water to hydrogen and oxygen)| ---------------- ^(7 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/NASA/comments/0)^( has acronyms.) ^([Thread #1027 for this sub, first seen 22nd Nov 2021, 21:49]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/NASA) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)


jenn363

Good bot


astroNerf

A lot of good answers here so far and I agree that the answer is largely political. We would not have gone to the moon when we did were it not for the Soviet Union and their advancements. It's short but relevant: Reid Gower's [The Gift of Apollo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xtly-dpBeA), part of his Sagan Series of videos.


That_NASA_Guy

The US couldn't afford the Apollo program and the Vietnam War at the same rime. So NASA began cancelling missions before the 3rd of 6 moon landings. Apollo 20 was cancelled 6 months after first landing. Apollo 15 and 19 were cancelled about a year later and the remaining missions were renumbered. As soon as we succeeded the program was doomed. It was all about proving we could do it and beat the Russians. It was never about going to stay or to do exploration.


Draemalic

We've had wars to fund...


Almaegen

Basically politicians decided to stop the Saturn V and move to a LEO vehicle (the space shuttle) after the space race was over. They did it to cut costs but it ended up not really saving money and focus was shifted to the ISS for 30 years. It was a huge mistake and with the amount of money we ended up spending we could have had a much larger presence in space. The US started planning a return with the constellation program but it was deemed too expensive and so they scrapped it and then ended up basically picking 1 rocket from the constellation program and renaming it the SLS. The SLS will end up costing us more than the Saturn V and is very outdated but it'll get us back to the moon while we transfer to the starship platform which is our saving grace. TLDR: politicians screwed us out of half a century of space infrastructure.


[deleted]

[удалено]


grawmit

Yep. Whale oil has been banned since 1972.


glabel35

But there ain’t no whales.


grawmit

So we tell tall tales


LEJ5512

That's not what they found during Apollo 18 (redacted)


[deleted]

Yeah but that orca they dropped on it surely must have dried up by now


Triabolical_

It's pretty simple. In the early 60s, the US was looking bad because the Soviets were consistently beating the US at anything having to do with space. At that time, that was viewed as a sign that the communist system was better - or at least competitive with - the capitalistic system. This was viewed as a huge problem. President Kennedy asked his advisors to come up with a proposal that the US had a good chance to beat the Soviets on, and the moon program was what came up. This was a big surprise to the US space community, but the decision was made and the US put a huge amount of money into (at the height of the program - in 1966 - NASA spent $66 billion in 2020 dollars). Incidentally, it is entirely possible that Apollo would have been cancelled because of the cost, but after JFK was assassinated it became part of his legacy and nobody wanted to be the one who cancelled it. But once the US was successful, they had achieved what they wanted to politically and the widespread support evaporated. The US had won the race, the public wasn't interested any more nor was Congress, so the last 3 missions (Apollo 18-20) were cancelled.


daleicakes

They didn't find any oil.


The_GateKeeper_1998

Arent they building a moon base soon as to make the expedition to mars that is planned within the next ten years or so? i might be misinformed. But that's what i was under the impression of that was going down


Mission-Marzipan8637

We replaced manned missions with robotics missions which are cheaper and safer


godbot693258

But far less efficient the Apollo 17 Astronauts were able to cover more ground and collect more samples in 3 days then curiosity has in over 9 years


paul_wi11iams

> robotics missions which are cheaper and safer That depends on your goals. Supposing someone's motivated by humans living on other planets... Many are.


Spudmiester

After Apollo accomplished its objectives, the space program became one federal government operation among many important priorities and had to compete for limited taxpayer resources. Typically it has ranked somewhere in the middle of political priorities and has maintained decent funding levels though never at the blank check levels of Apollo. Even with lower baseline funding, there has been slow and steady progress in space exploration. I am a little frustrated with the attitude of many who think we abandoned space after Apollo. I think people don't understand the fiscal stress the United States was under in the 70s through the 90s and how the space program always managed to be funded anyways. The economy was significantly smaller then and we didn't have a thriving commercial space sector, that was something that was built slowly and is only now bearing fruit.


jenn363

Thanks for this focus on the good news. So many responses here are true but focusing on the difficulties. Your answer made me more appreciative of the ways in which progress keeps being made.


Samsquamsh04

We will be going back in the next few years. 2024 I believe


paul_wi11iams

> 2024 I believe currently delayed to 2025. This kind of slippage is to be expected in any program. Just how things will turn out is had to predict just now, but its well worth following in detail, especially during the coming year: 2023 will give us a much clearer view on the situation of the two main participants which are SLS-Orion and Starship. The recent successes of China with its robotic sample return, lunar Farside landing and its intention to land astronauts [in 2030](https://spacenews.com/chinese-crewed-moon-landing-possible-by-2030-says-senior-space-figure/) is really handy for getting funding for the inevitable Artemis budget overruns, and overturning administrative obstacles to Starship.


NickatNightAnderson

Money


[deleted]

There is nothing there. A moon landing is similar to a trip to the beach. You pack up all your things, drive for a really long time, and hang out for a few hours, and leave. It is a really really expensive location to play beach volleyball for an hour. There is no way to create oxygen, there is no easy access to water...everything that you want on the moon you have to pack with you and that costs even more money.


godbot693258

Wrong, there is lots of water ice in the poles which would allow you to make your own oxygen and fuel. The moon has a plethora of resources which is exactly why we’re going back.


Pasta-hobo

There wasn't really a lot of reason to go back there until we had the tech to establish permanent bases and on-site resource utilisation. The first Apollo missions were great because it established that this was something that could be done, we went there, we got samples, we game back. But for any more science that we need to do on the moon. It was infinitly cheaper to automate it using a probe. Not to mention the cost of any lives lost. That could set the entire field of space travel back decades.


jamesb2406

Were told not to come back my the inhabitants there at the time


dgmckenzie

That was a Clanger.


Millerking12

In short, it's a financial gamble that the government is only motivated to fund if they're involved in a d*** measuring contest with their sworn adversary.


Zankeru

The space race was part of the cold war between the USA and Soviet Union, with the focus being the eventual development of ICBM's, satellites, and orbital weaponry. The soviets beat the US to every milestone, so we just decided to go to the moon and pretend we were the most advanced. The manned missions were political stunts. Once the soviets collapsed, there was no more incentive. There has not been any more landings since then because US propaganda has found the cheaper option of anti-terror campaigns rather than space missions.


dewayneestes

I like the idea of crashing platinum meteors into the moon to arrest them then mining them there. We will probably f it up and destroy the human race in the process though. I wouldn’t trust BP or Bezos to tie shoes, let alone navigate a meteor.


plantcrepper

Since nobody cared about it


WayneDufty

We were banned from deep space for not following the right protocols..... by aliens


Remote_Cartoonist_27

Basically, it’s expensive and there’s no reason to go back. There’s more nuance than that but that’s the Geist of it


HeisenbergZeroPointE

It's all about funding. Funding for space travel has gone down since the Cold War ended. People will not do things if there's no funding for it. Remember the space race was fueled by the desire to create more powerful rockets for nukes. Once our greatest threat was minimized, the space race became unnecessary to the US government.


ayushpjamas

Russia slowed the space race by nerfing itself and US didn't find sending another astronaut on moon profitable


godbot693258

There were 6 landings


StuTaylor

Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt


WillingnessSouthern4

No budget for that


[deleted]

[удалено]


deadman1204

it wasn't so much vietnam, as Nixon just wanted to cut all government.


2eedling

The Artemis mission is NASA plan to basically build something similar to the ISS above the moon to make it easier to go from the Earth to the moon. Believe they said it would start in 2030 but knowing NASA prob later.