Why haven't we gone back to the moon in 46 years ?!

They encountered ETs who told us never to come back.

 

Your point is very well taken. We have people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Marty Cooper, god bless them. The projects you cite are earth shaking, but they are projects done by modern Edison's not our nation. As a nation we can't even repair our failing infrastructure. We could, but we don't. We lack the collective vision, will, and energy to do so.

 

So we sit here and await our doom.

 

We haven't gone back to the moon or done anything significant in space in the last half century because of short sighted people. People who demand to know what we will immediately gain from it. People who have no interest in a long term strategy that will take a tremendous expenditure of resources and effort and won't yield immediate profits. People who don't give the slightest **** about anything that happens outside of their own lifespan.

 

2017
Here's what we'll lose with Trump's proposed NASA budget cuts, and why one expert is calling it out
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nasa-budget-cuts-2017-5

2013
Draft House bill threatens $1 billion in NASA funding cuts
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/draft-house-bill-threatens-1-billion-in-nasa-funding-cuts/

2006
Bush's NASA cuts halts much research
https://phys.org/news/2006-04-bush-nasa-halts.html

1981
The Reagan administration's planned NASA budget cuts may cripple America's space program for a decade and appear likely to force cancellation of a mission to view Halley's comet in 1985, scientists say.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/1...d-NASA-budget-cuts-may-cripple/1018373179600/

Those damned Democrats.

 

I notice you missed Reagan and both Bush's, How convenient. God knows the funding flowed like mana from heaven for visionary projects under them. They did gives us tax cuts, deficits, and two collapsed economies though. Whenever you do what you just did, nobody gives you any credibility for what you say.

 

Nature never gives something for nothing.

 

Me too, but the Democrats don't believe in advancing technology. They believe in greater entitlements.

 

Motivation and money. Pretty much that. We went the first time time to win against the Russians. There is just not enough reason to go back. We said we could do it and we did it. Apparently that was enough. I'm sure if we learned the Chinese were setting up a moonbase we would be there within a month. So, China we are waiting.

 

There is really only one reason to build a base on the mon and you can do it better from large space platforms any way and that has to do with Fuel expenditure and gravity more than anything else.

 

There's no point ..... We have already made contact .

 

And going back to the moon would accomplish what?

 

For one, virtually limitless fuel resources, but nuclear power is still too controversial even though it's by far the most efficient energy source we have.

 

Sorry more like Fusion reactors. But similar problems that's why the first step is large scale space based construction facilities.

 

It's complicated. First just to get it out of the way, it's a matter of politics and with so much more going on in the world now than 1969 it's not a winner politically. I could go on but I'll leave that right there. Second, although technology has brought down the cost of a lot of things, the hardware cost so much more than it did for the first Apollo mission. Comparatively speaking,by today's standard the Apollo vehicles were like the Wright Flyer. If you remember Apollo 1 resulted in the deaths of three astronauts and Apollo 13 had nearly a catastrophic event. They went with what they had then but in reality they were flying by the seat of their pants. To produce a safe and economical mission now would be about 150 billion dollars per trip and that's still without a backup should anything major go wrong. I agree that we should be doing this but we are so divided on everything here that even such an enormously beneficial endeavor cannot win universal approval, some folks think it's better to spend money things like transgender issues and the like.

 

The republican and democrats' religion of statism is so powerful that they cannot even conceive of the possibility of private businesses getting people to the moon. I guarantee that private business will not have the extremely horrifying record that the US government has of getting people into space and back without killing them or almost killing them.

 

To be fair, the NASA program was our introduction to space. It was fantastically dangerous and as cutting-edge as it got. It is not fair to judge those working with 1950s technology and up, by today's standards. We can simulate on computers, tests that once killed people. Everything from electronics to materials science have advanced tremendously over the last 30 years.

Also, having spent my entire adult life in and around industry, I can tell you that one rule is certain: At some point, the bottom line will drive bad decisions and people will die. THAT is more true of industry than government programs. By definition, commercial enterprises must make a profit. The government can lose money. They never intended to make a profit.

 

Try judging them by the standards of 15 years ago when Columbia burned up

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