Serious question. Why haven't we returned to the moon?

As the title says it, why haven't returned to the moon, if we did go in the first place. We "rushed" up into space to beat Russia, correct? I mean, was that the only reason, inspiration we had? To beat Russia? We have robots going to other planets and what not, but what gives? Curiosity has gotten the best of me and I've researched this question, but just thought I'd make it into a discussion thanks.

It's probably because man has never been to the moon. It's all one big fat lie. Everything we have ever learned...in school...was one big fat lie. Look at today's history books. They actually call 9-11 a 'terrorist attack'. Pfft. Give me a break! HIS-story...is all a bunch of lies!

The race to the moon was based on power. Whoever had the power to reach the moon, also had the power on Earth. Firepower, economic power, scientific power. Until now, there was no reason to go back, as we had proven ourselves to be top dog in the space race. But water is getting scarce on Earth now, and there are signs of millions of gallons of water on the moon. We may go back for that, but otherwise, it's pointless.

Destination: Mars!

/TOA

The only thing I can think of, is that the Aliens got tired of them probing into their business and gave them an ultimatum.

Leave and never return... And you will be spared when we kick you're arses.

I have seen numerous theories on this:

We landed on the moon and were told by its inhabitants never to come back
We never actually went to the moon because its not possible due to the radiation belt
We never went back because there is nothing there for us

Whatever your personal beliefs might be, putting aside any conspiracy or alien theories; perhaps it's just a simple reason of cost vs benefit?

Not all Americans want to believe that 911 was an inside job. Like my grandmother denies that the pope is hiding pedophiles.


What I don't understand is, wouldn't we want to explore the moon? From top to bottom instead of just landing, walking around, and putting a freaking flag? Now that wateris becoming scarce we still are doing nothing but liking thru a telescope expecting a sign that says "Hey we have water, come on over"

Haha, aliens would probably destroy us for our humanity being so stupidly greedy.

reply to post by celimonster


TPTB seem to be grounding us, America anyway. First no more moon, then shelve the shuttle...I think that is the big question..why are we giving up on men in space? Is it because at least with robots and probes you can control what is seen? Or is it just a money issue?

reply to post by AtlantisX99


I highly doubt the government cares for the cost of moon exploration. They've wasted thousand of dollars on useless things.

Cost its seems but I dont realy buy that, we could mine the moon if we have not already?

Also there are storys going around that one of the apollo misions got warned off by some aliens but theres no proof to say it was fake or not.

reply to post by timetothink


I believe your answer makes the most sense. It's all about control and manipulation with the government.

I've read that we're supposed to go back between 2015-2020

reply to post by celimonster

They've wasted thousand of dollars on useless things.

Understatement of the year

you first have to go to the moon to return to it.

The non-conspiracy answer for never returning to the moon is COST and politics.

Whatever politicians are in office at any given time, are only going to approve/deny another trip to the moon if doing/not doing so will keep them in office.

Geeks that want men back on the moon are a minority when it's trendy to camp out in parks protesting things like where money goes, and why it's not in the pockets of those camping in parks.

Send people back to the moon? Will it get me re-elected? No? Let's cut NASA's budget then to try pleasing these other other lobby interests.

Cost to benefit vs. politics says we're not exploring the moon (again) any time soon.

Hell, there's also the Martian 'curse' that doesn't even want us sending robotic probes there either as evidenced by all the lost tech we keep tossing that way, most recently the Phobos-Grunt shot.

sad

Originally posted by AtlantisX99

Whatever your personal beliefs might be, putting aside any conspiracy or alien theories; perhaps it's just a simple reason of cost vs benefit?

Ha Ha, when has that ever stopped any government doing anything.
Btw brilliant avatar Atlantis!

Anyhoo good question OP. As a student of history and anthropology it seems to go against human nature and precedent that humans visit somewhere and decide to ignore it ever after (no matter how crappy it is). For military strategic and purely egotistical purposes men have always coveted the higher ground, and there ain't no place loftier than old Luna. One answer could possibly be contained within my signature !!!! Its a great question though.

As I recall, it was about funding the project. After the science, the land itself is useless to us. Mining would be enormously expensive with no payback. As a base to launch into space, it is much too far away for practicality. The best and most likely use for the Moon is as a place for a resort. Like Earth, where many remote places are used as resorts for the wealthy, the next race to the Moon will be by private enterprise for personal gain. That will not likely occur until the travel time to the Moon is drastically reduced....hence, the spaceplane.

Originally posted by celimonster
reply to post by AtlantisX99

 

I highly doubt the government cares for the cost of moon exploration. They've wasted thousand of dollars on useless things.

Well there is the other theory of course, that we are and have been going there ever since, it's just not publicised

China announced they intend on sending their astronauts to the moon in the next 5 years.

www.bbc.co.uk...

The above post was put on the bbc website about 2 weeks ago.

Originally posted by celimonster
reply to post by AtlantisX99

 

I highly doubt the government cares for the cost of moon exploration. They've wasted thousand of dollars on useless things.

Hi celimonster. Cost is rarely a good argument when it comes to the US Govt. Going to the Moon takes political willpower and the US Govt just doesn't have it. The Americans have proved that they are willing to pay any price to win the propaganda victories they deem necessary and prudent.

It cost > $5 Trillion to produce US cold war nuclear arsenals, only to disarm most nukes after ~50 years.
It cost > $100,000 per hour in Iraq during the early years of the Neo-con invasion.
It cost $7,700,000 dollars (in 1969 dollars) for NASA contractor Westinghouse to build 17 B/W television cameras only to have those cameras set aside for the new Color TV cameras that went up with later Apollo missions.

And here is today's NASA spending special deal of the week!

It has cost over $375,000,000 for NASA's GRAIL-A/B mission to the moon and both of those probes will be unceremoniously crashed into the moon's surface at the end of the 90 day mission. Yes, you read that right. 90 days. Wow. The GRAIL probes recently achieved lunar orbit so the 90-day countdown to kamikaze the moon has already begun.

But now to answer your question, "Serious question. Why haven't we returned to the moon?" I will try to summarize this as briefly as possible:

NIXON.

My question is, if we faked the moon landings, why didn't we fake a manned landing on mars as well?

If we wanted to prove our superiority, we surely would have "landed" on mars too. We couldn't fake anything in today's world, but I would like to think we could have done a faked landing on mars in the 1980's.