Why is it so hard to go back to the moon?

Re:Why is it so hard to go back to the moon? by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday September 17, 2024 @03:37PM (#41571772)

Right. But 60 years ago, putting a human on the moon was universally seen as "advancing human achievement". I would argue that right now, where we are not actually about to build a moon or Mars base, putting people out there is not widely seen as "advancing human achievement".

Sending someone to Mars without them dying (and maybe bringing them back) will be a huge step. There's so much we can do on and around Mars, however, without anyone being out there, and some of them are also likely to be huge advancements.

Similarly for the asteroid belt. Yes, it will probably need humans out there eventually, but there's a massive, massive task of mapping and exploring it that can and almost certainly will be done without launching humans into space.

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Re:Why is it so hard to go back to the moon? by Kim_Bruning on Tuesday September 17, 2024 @04:03PM (#41572068)

You're not entirely wrong when extrapolating from historic trends up to-say- 1999. But the price of launching humans into space has gone down dramatically as is this century (to the point where privately funded LEO missions have become viable), and looks to be going down rapidly in the near future. Space flight looks like it might be entering a period akin to Moore's law in IT.

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