Those very famous first words were spoken
by Neil Armstrong on the moon around 44 years
ago and the last time a human step foot on
the moon was 41 years ago, almost to the day.
With the Chinese landing on the moon on Saturday
it begs the question, why hasn't the United
States or any other country displayed any
interest in racing back to the moon?
First we need to understand why the United
States decided to go to the moon in the first
place. It all comes down to the Cold War between
the United States and the Soviet Union.
When the United States heard that the Soviet
Union had managed to successfully launch a
satellite into orbit around Earth the space
race was on to the moon. We weren't going
there to explore, America was going there
to show up other countries. NASA couldn't
be the first to space, but they could try
and be the first on the moon.
In 2005's money, NASA estimates that the Apollo
program which saw six groups of men make their
way to the moon at different times, cost a
cool $170 billion. That means each Apollo
launch which managed to make it to the moon
cost on average $29 billion.
First off we don't really need to have humans
on the moon thanks to the satellites we have
orbiting the moon looking for water and mapping
out the moon. It's much cheaper to have these
going around the moon than sending humans
out there to do their own hunting.
Secondly has to do with the lack of money.
After the public lost interest in the moon
thanks to the United States winning the space
race congress cut NASA's funding. The public
was pushing congress to fund NASA so that
America could win the Space Race to the moon.
For NASA it would be a lot cheaper to leave
humans they send to the moon there to die
due to getting back to Earth costing a lot
of money. That's why we tend these days to
just send robots to things we want to see
as we can leave them there.
According to NASA's chief Charles Bolden "NASA
is not going to the moon with a human as a
primary project probably in my lifetime."
NASA is aiming to focus on a manned mission
to an Asteroid and eventually to Mars in mid
2030's which would be more valuable than the
moon.
So unless the United States feels the need
to show to the world they are better than
another country, we probably won't see them
racing out to the moon with humans on board
any time soon, but maybe with China making
it to the moon the United States might feel
compelled to go back just to try and prove
something. But unless the public wants NASA
to return to the moon, they won't.
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