I’ve often wondered why we have been ignoring the moon for so long. Shuttles go up routinely, so space exploration is still important. Why haven’t we gone to the moon for so long. How come they never built even a small space station up there?
A moon orbit is much farther from the launch area than an Earth orbit. Remember: “Faster, Cheaper, Better.”
Because it would cost billions and provide little new information for scientists.
HIJACK ALERT:
Why did we go to the moon in the first place?
IMHO it was just to prove to the Russians and the world that the USA had the superior technology. We couldn’t let the Russians beat us to the moon, or as one politician put it, “we can’t have a Red moon”. I have rambled on in another thread about the 75 years war (1914 to 1989) between the titanic forces of monarchy, fascism, communism, and democracy. The moon missions were part of this war, in that we couldn’t let our allies lose faith in our ability to build superior missiles. Now that the war is finally over, the need for proving ourselves is gone, and there is no one competing with us in the realm of manned space missions, not much is getting done. Another question would be, why haven’t we sent a man to Mars? Same answer…
The short answer is that we did not even have the technology to go to the moon the first time. Obviously, we were successful and I am not insinuating that we did not go to the moon. What I am saying is that the technology was not in place in 1969 to ensure of successful moon landing with 98% confidence. We took a chance and we made it to surpass the Russians. These days, the American public does not have the same stomach for any loss off life for such a mission. The Challenger disaster and the recent loss of two Mars landers shows that NASA has to be quite wary of any more PR failures. Finally, I don’t think that a lunar base has much scientific value to warrant such a risk of human life.
Had there been more water or unfamiliar elements or different meteorites with life from Mars, I’m sure we’d be back. But, since it’s not much by itself, and a dangerous base, some other scientists got the money. I’m sure the Moon guys ask again every year, and at some point we’ll go back, but right now I’d rather we spent the brainpower on Mars.
Arthur C. Clarke mentioned frequently in his novels that an extra 1%-10% of the fuel needed to go to the moon is enough to get you all the way to Saturn.
We’re not giving ourselves enough credit, here. Why go to the Moon when we can go to Callisto?
Hmm… looks like LunaCorp is going to drop a rover on the moon in late '03. People will get to drive it by remote control… 
And one of the sponsors is Radio Shack.
Well, the shallow reason is that nobody can give us a practical reason to go back. The politicos can’t see any personal or political gain in it, and the corporations don’t see any profit margins. Bear in mind, though, that the moment the Chinese land on Mars we’ll be scuba-diving in the seas of Europa; and the moment space travel becomes a good investment they’ll be opening IKEA outlets in Tycho Crater. Take heart - it’s just a matter of time.
The deeper reason is lack of imagination. People think of space exploration as a means, not an ends; the way I see it is, what does mankind have better to do?
The Apollo program was a show of strength…a space race against Russia. As described in Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”, it was a show of America’s rocket-making ability (rockets that could also be used for nuke weapons) as a deterrant to our enemies and a lure to countries that were on the fence about the US-USSR superiority. Fortunately, some good engineering/science came out of it too.
As for a moon base, there needs to be a justification to spend the money and the political will to make it happen. So far, there is neither (unfortunately! I’m an advocate of space exploration if you couldn’t guess by my username). The space shuttle program is more about satellites and Earth-science than it is about space exploration. We’d also need to know if a moon base would work…so far, we can’t even get Biosphere to work.
They’re finding out more neat stuff about the moon (like possible water) but the purpose of a moon base remains unclear. Perhaps the already ongoing Int. Space Station can be used as a port for further space exploration. And if our goal is to use the moon as a stepping stone to Mars…well, we probably could just focus on getting to Mars directly because the moon would not provide that much more of an advantage.
Gee…I’m sounding a bit pessimistic. I don’t mean to. I’m fascinated by the space program (more for the planetary exploration than for the shuttle program) and I hope to see a human landing on Mars in my lifetime!
This is more of a WAG, but is it possible that the decision has something to do with the safety factor? If an Earth orbiting space station has a problem, it might be possible for the crew to evacuate and get back down to the ground. But if something happens to Moon Base Alpha, they’ve got at least a 3 day ride back to Earth.
Also, as I understand it, we have to build the orbiting space station before we can head back out to the moon. By having an orbital platform, it’ll become a lot easier and cheaper to launch missions to the moon. Once the costs drop, the possibilities for making a moon base a profitable mission will increase the likelihood of it being built.
It takes a lot of fuel to get into and out of the moon’s gravity well. Unless there is something there like water that could be used for fuel and air, I don’t see why the moon would be a site for a station or a place to launch missions from.
The biggest hurdle is the current outrageous cost to orbit, due to NASA having a stranglehold on heavy lift capabilities. Once some private companies manage to build an SSTO, the cost will drop by a factor of 10-100. At that point, private agencies will be able to afford to launch moon probes and landers. That will opent the door to private expeditions (much like Everest expeditions), tourism, and advertising (i.e. RadioShack sponsoring the next lunar lander).
Building an actual moon lander is not that tough, since there’s no atmosphere to worry about. The LEM was a pretty flimsy little craft. With modern computer guidance, you could land there pretty easily.
One good reason for building a moon base - rocket fuel. If there really is water on the moon, then I could see us building an automated factory to manufacture rocket fuel. it would be a lot cheaper to get that fuel into LEO from the moon than from the Earth. And fuel will be needed in Earth orbit to replenish supplies on the space station and larger satellites that have to manoever. Plus, getting tons of cheap fuel into LEO would make solar system exploration that much cheaper. Water will also be needed on the space station both for drinking and to provide breathable oxygen.
Everyone’s saying that there’s no good reason to establish a Lunar base, so I’m sure that there’s a good answer to this question. Why not put a telescope on the Moon? With no atmosphere there, you could have a 'scope the size of Arecibo with the precision of Hubble. Am I wrong in thinking that it’s harder to construct and maintain space-borne telescopes than land-based ones?
Damn right. The far side of the moon is the only place anywhere near the earth that is shielded from our own radio pollution. And with technology quickly solving the problem of segmented mirrors, the assembly of an optical telescope on farside is a viable option, too. I cannot understand why the astronomers and the rocket jockeys aren’t in accord on this.
Go there first, and then figure out how to profit from it later. Beleive it or not, this approach actually works. When we were planning the Apollo project, our one and only reason was to show off to Russia and the rest of the world. We sure as heck didn’t expect that the whole project would pay for itself several times over in medical advances alone.
If you insist on naming a practical offshoot before launch, think mining. It’s a lot easier to get mass from the lunar surface to LEO than it is from Earth, and if you want to build anything in space, you’ve got to get the raw materials there.
Has anyone heard about the guy who’s planning to build a rocket & launch himself to the moon?
Arecibo is a radio telescope, Hubble is an optical telescope. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the limiting factor in optical telescopes is lense size. That said, a huge radio telescope on the moon, built in a crater or something, would probably have to deal with less distortion than an Earth based radio telescope.
Arthur C Clarke suggested finding a small, stationary asteroid; and basically covering the outside with dishes. This would cover a much larger portion of the sky, constantly.
Could it be because Mars is already “the Red Planet”? We’re too late!
If we’re talking about the same guy, his ambition is to launch to the edge of space; I don’t think he’s looking to get to the moon just yet. I have a thread going on this in MPSIMS…
My father was an aerospace engineer for NASA and then became a consultant for them. He specialised in advanced mission designs. His last project before he retired was looking at moon bases. (this was in the 80’s) At that time, with the current technology, he figured that we could put men back on the moon starting in the mid 90’s and have a PERMENANT presence by 2001. For only a few billion dollars a year. (I knoe this sounds like alot, but remember the govt has a trillion dollar budget) But space wasn’t sexy anymore to the politicos. Then Challenger happened and NASA almost bit the bullet. They became very afraid of manned space exploration.
It’s all perceptions. More people have been killed driving to watch space launches than have died in space. But the country panics when someone gets killed on TV. Exploring space is dangerous and the odds are that in aproject as big as a moon base someone will die. NASA wont risk the PR disaster. My father also worked on the early concepts for shuttle. They figured that the odds were even the they would lose one of the four shuttles during a mission during the lifetime of the program. (What surprised them was how. They never expected a solid rocket failure, but expected to lose one through a crash on landing.) But, the point is, is that even expecting a loss of a shuttle, they were not able to counter the bad PR and national shock of the disaster.
So no risks are taken by NASA unless their feet are held to the fire.