Why Everyone Wants to Go Back to the Moon

And not one mention of SpaceX, the company that is single-handedly made space travel practical? Nothing about their Starship which is planned to orbit the moon before NASA? (But will probably be delayed, just like NASA will, and still beat them.)

But for the Cold War between the Soviet Union there would have been no race to the Moon. John F. Kennedy was caught on a White House recording expressing his expletive lack of interest in going to space. But rockets that carried men could also carry nuclear weapons and spy and other kinds of satellites to and beyond Earth orbit. And the military- industrial complex took note. The promise of the Space Shuttle program died with Challenger and Columbia. Space stations became the only international cooperation model. Getting humans away from Earth fights against 300, 000 years of biological DNA evolutionary fit natural selection. Humans need gravity, air, water and protection against radiation. Beyond the Moon every destination is dangerously farther away. And chemical rocketry is slow and inefficient. While America currently spends a tiny fraction of what it spent on NASA during Project Apollo. There are costs and benefits to a one human race Earth based international space program. But mostly benefits. Public plus private cooperation helps.

Today NASA is depended on Russian Rockets to send supplies to International Space Station. Having not developed powerful enough rockets, NASA is incapable of doing this on its own. Talking about Russian collusion! That is because President Nixon who did not give a hoot about Space Exploration, decided to build dead-end Space Shuttles benefitting companies in California where he was from. America fell way behind engineering and technology . Moon shots exited and inspired a whole generation of young boys to become engineers and scientists. I hope NASA's returning to the moon would help inspire a new generation of American scientists!

Wonder if Amazon will offer 2-day delivery to the moon?

The Times has a penchant for these grand headlines "Why Everyone Wants to Go Back to the Moon". And then they never require their writers to answer that fundamental premise with any depth. Why, indeed? Like why, REALLY why. Like as in a tangible reason. From what I glean it amounts to: "one of the main reasons for accelerating a return to the moon now is to reduce the chances of politicians changing their minds again". OK. whatever. Not compelling. Or: "A primary impetus for a moon stampede now? The discovery that there is water there", and...??????? Ah yes, the old canard: "could serve as a stop for spacecraft to refill their tanks before heading out into the solar system." Wouldn't it serve the interests of intelligent readers to NOT pretend that we are going to "Star Trek" it up? Mars is cold. Desolate. No atmosphere. It's insane to hold forth vague promissory notions that mankind it going to branch out. Beyond the circus-trick novelty of it. And Mars is our ONLY "best" bet, which is to say, nope, ain't happening. Anything else in our solar system is ridiculously not inhabitable. And beyond our solar system? Maybe educate your readers about interstellar distances. A little teensy dose of reality here would actually serve your readers better than to kowtow to "trump's" Disney-tyranny.

50 years ago, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder from the Lunar Module and stepped onto the Moon. His words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”, are immortal in the history of humanity. What should be the next giant leap for mankind? Should it be a landing on Mars, or as Dr. James Powell has proposed the Next Giant Leap should be a system of solar satellites in geosynchronous orbit, which fixes the relationship of the satellite to Earth, to collect the Sun’s energy, beam it to virtually any spot on Earth, and convert it to very low cost electric power for distribution on power grids. This system of 24/7 power is only possible with the Superconducting Magnetically Levitated Space Launch System called StarTram. StarTram may be the technical solution for the next epoch in the evolution of human civilization because with this launch system it may be possible to create solar generated electricity at a price much less than fossil energy generated electricity by launching for less than 1% of chemical rocket launch. Electricity created for wholesale distribution at about 2 cents per kilowatt hour would permit electric transport, creation of synthetic jet fuel from air and water, affordable desalination of water for agriculture and power machines to scrub the atmosphere of accumulated greenhouse gasses, and industrial & home electricity to continue the economic progress for a population of about 10 Billion. We have only 1 planet.

The President seems to believe the science behind lunar missions. Now he needs to learn to apply science on this Planet. Maybe he'll come along. You know baby steps, baby steps.

The best reason to go back to the Moon? There is an enormous amount of science still to be done. Almost literally, we have only scratched the surface, yet research based on Apollo samples changed our understanding of the solar system and how the Earth formed. We are long overdue to build on that. Second best reason? if you can't sustain people living on the Moon for an extended period, which is not much more than a weekend trip away, it would be totally crazy and irresponsible to send people on a 2 year round trip to Mars, where any kind of rescue or additional support would be impossible. A scientist

Americans should venture back to the moon and Mars. Both excite the human imagination. We need that, despite our many problems on Earth. Besides, it will be done -- sooner or later -- so why not us? And what's so wrong about spending a small fraction of our GDP (with public or private money) on research that promotes the future of humanity? That said, the most important problems we face are climate change and the proliferation of nuclear weapons (just ask the Atomic Scientists). We need to solve these problems here on Earth, otherwise they will simply follow us wherever we go. The moon and Mars represent our collective future. But they will never be "lifeboats." We need to work together focusing to solve the problems we have created on our home planet, otherwise these other worlds will offer us little sustenance.

Many of the issues that hobble NASA over the last 20 years are revealed in this article. Unlike the NIH which has reasonably steady funding with the clarity of vision to help cure human diseases, NASA after our moon missions, struggles with inadequate funding by Congress and a lack of national vision. It seems to me that colonization of another planet which would more likely ensure human survival than just living on earth would be the obvious choice. We could shoot for Mars and make it happen. But there needs to be clarity from Congress and the President that we will follow this through with vigor, the way the moon program was done. The spin off in technology, renewed sense of purpose and the leadership of the United States in space exploration would be reborn.

All of this is nothing more than a political distraction. The main reason for going to the moon the first time was to develop new technologies. It's the same reason for the Chinese and Indian moon programs. But there's really nothing on the moon that's commercially valuable to the United States. The scientific knowledge we can glean there is valuable, but that can be harvested completely by robotics at a fraction of the cost of sending human beings there. All of these arguments are a repeat of NASA's Constellation program. Then, like now, there wasn't the political will to spend the money. The same can be said for the recently touted 'Space Force'. That sounds like a repeat of The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), the military astronaut program cancelled in 1969 because the same objectives could be achieved using robotics, at a fraction of the cost.

Mr. Chang needs to update his article: Bill Gerstenmaier, director of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations division and his deputy were demoted Wednesday...Probably because the administration can't and won't accept that sending people back to the moon by 2024 is impossible under current conditions...I would assume Jim Bridenstine will be the next to go if he says that the Emperor has no clothes... https://www.yahoo.com/news/nasa-chief-fired-trump-administration-140743406.html

Can we be honest here? The SLS is a make-work program for people in Alabama and a few other important districts, nothing more. The faster we trash it, the faster the US can get back into real space work.

NASA actually sent 27 astronauts towards the moon from 1968-1972.

Other than politics and publicity what do we get out of sending astronauts to the moon, again?

"... but also for water that can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen." Electrolysis of water requires energy, and there is little sunlight at the lunar poles, so where is that energy going to come from? The Wikipedia article, "Electrolysis of water", has the technical details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

I don't think the US is up to this any more. It takes 8 years to build a decent bridge now.

The training for landing at the moon's south pole would have to include an extra expense for intensive psych screening to find out which astronauts can acclimate to constantly looking at an upside-down Earth without the risk of developing long term stress problems. "But.. okay.. I can flip the camera upside down to take a picture of it... but.. then.. the surface of the moon itself will be upside down in the top of the frame! Why can't we just take the picture and you guys can use Photoshop to fix it?"

Please do not follow the American tradition of turning a new frontier into a waste dump.

Not a thin dime for a return to the moon. No $20-30 billion boondoggles. No deluded grabs at Apollo anniversary nostalgia. No programs hatching from an administration of 3rd and 4th string acting managers. No bread-and-circus distractions from the debt-ridden mess Republicans have made of government with their tax cuts and inability to write a budget. Not a thin dime to return to the moon.

"Neglected After Apollo..." You say say "neglected" as if we had other, pressing priorities. In a way, I suppose we did. More profit, more tax breaks, more money to the very top. Less welfare, less support for health, education, science, the people. Its wearisome that space, real space, the exploration part, gains currency only when someone needs a circus to distract or believes they have a way to turn everything out there into money. Which is the plan. Every article notes there's no control, no Antarctic Treaty to protect and preserve. Soon we'll have Pepsi and Coke projected on the heavens every evening. We'll observe the growth of mysterious shadows as we strip mine the place into oblivion. I promise you Audi or somebody will scratch their logo into The Sea of Corporate Hegemony. It is a unique sin of the American establishment that we went once to the moon and shut it down. Now, knowing he can't be another Obama, Trump efforts to be Kennedy II, with all the class of a carnival huckster (no offense, you barkers) and all the greed of Trump. Reading about cities that decided the land their reservoirs occupied was "too valuable" for water suffering without any, I hold no hope at all that our presence in space will be a positive one. We, the rich among us, truly are that foolish, that blind. Everybody thought we were joking when we said so. Just...stupid. I just hope that great Sierra Club in the sky is authorized intergalactically to use force.

Kennedy gave leadership to get us to the Moon. Once we got there, he was gone, the task was done, and there was no more leadership to go on from there. So we just stopped. Completely. Like it never happened. For half a century. Look back on what people thought we'd see by now. They all expected that getting to the Moon was the beginning, not the end. But that is all we got from Kennedy, and nobody else gave us any leadership in this at all.

Thanks Kenneth, Of course we are going back, and the sooner the better. As for Mars, which is where we thought we were going 50 years ago, my bet on the over-under for that grand mission to be 2048, when a Chinese woman takes the next giant leap for mankind. 2033 is possible from the standpoint that every 15 years we come as close as we can, but that may be a reach technically and financially. But let's face it, we are better off reaching for the stars than for our guns. One way brings out the best in us; the other the worst. One way the future lies; the other the end of life on this planet. I vote for Stars.

It looks entirely possible that space tourism will catch on among the well to do and that a hotel will orbit Earth in the not distant future. After that a hotel on the surface of the Moon seems possible. Certainly governments will explore the Moon for "rare Earth" minerals, but in a commercially driven service economy like we see now tourism may well be the economic force that develops in space. If you are worth billions having a Martini on the Moon may sound like fun. Real Estate developers in space? Yea, that sounds about right. Florida was first developed by railroad tycoons who built hotels as trip destinations in places like Tampa & Miami. Just saying it could happen that way.

NASA going back to the moon is a great idea, but so is recognizing the science and reality of climate destruction right here on Earth and doing something about that destruction. Also, funding endless wars takes away from all kinds of scientific research and applications.