If You Believe They Put A Man On The Moon
One of the things I do look forward to with the coming transitions involving the two NASA sites I'm babysitting is not having to deal with Moon hoax questions. Most of the time, I just refer people to check out one of these two sites, and that's the end of it. Today, though, I had some guy write me back with follow-up questions, some of which were easy (If NASA went to the Moon, why do they keep the Apollo craft locked up at NASA? Why isn't it at the Smithsonian? Um... it is.), but one, and I hear this one frequently, is a little tougher, and that is why no one has been back to the Moon.
Here's my reply. What else needs to be said?

"The last question is a little more difficult, since there's no simple cut and dry answer. But you ask why no other country around the world has sent anyone to the Moon. First off, you have to define your terms. While there are many, many countries on Earth, only two actually have manned spaceflight capability. (And China, which is on its way to becoming the third country with manned launch-vehicles, has announced that it does intend to send a man to the Moon, which it wouldn't do if it weren't pretty confident it were possible.)
To a large extent, the motivations for the Moon race were political, to see which side of the Cold War could achieve it first. When the goal was reached, a lot of the incentive for continuing the program was gone. The Soviet Union was actually still a pretty good ways from being able to achieve a Moon landing, due to the way they were going about it.
Rather than performing a lunar docking manuever, as with the Apollo program, the Soviets were attempting to build a phenomenally powerful super-rocket that would have been able to fly to the Moon, land there, take off, and fly back, without the Apollo CM's advantage of returning to Earth from lunar orbit rather than the surface. Such a rocket was not developed prior to the American landing, and the incentive to continue such an expensive program was not there.
With the Moon landing accomplished, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. decided that it was time to move on to other goals, and began working on establishing space stations. You have to consider, also, that during this phase of the Cold War, there were military considerations also. While the Moon held little strategic value, there was fear by both sides that if the other dominated Earth orbit, they would be able to drop bombs from space.
Further, for many, there was the belief that rather than wasting resources going to the Moon, man should instead press ahead to Mars. While the Soviets/Russians have done research toward a Mars trip, they have never committed the funding to make it a reality. The U.S., on the other hand, has essentially been working since the early 1970s on a project that is just now becoming a reality. The Apollo program was cancelled in favor of the Space Shuttle, and one of the Space Shuttle's main goals was the creation of the Space Station. And now, 30 years, later, that goal is finally being realized."

:: :: 11:05 :: David :: [permalink] ::