Why mankind not returned to Moon

[Pawelk198604]

I wonder why we did not have anything of magnitude of Apollo program?

I know that expansive, American and more specify NASA had experience with that, why they did not ESA, JAXA, or even Roscosmos for cooperation, it would be much cheaper this way

[Spaceception]

Policies, so they stopped, and like you said, it was really expensive, although, tech we have today could make it much cheaper, so we may do some sort of new Apollo program in the nearish future.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Spaceception

[Gaarst]

The USA beat the Soviets by going to the Moon first. There's no point in coming second, so everyone moved on.

This, and money.

[Pawelk198604]

1 minute ago, Gaarst said:

The USA beat the Soviets by going to the Moon first. There's no point in coming second, so everyone moved on.

This, and money.

I do not see the problem, the Russians can focus on Mars, for a variety of Americans are not discouraged after they got lost, and not once but twice, handwritten USSR, worked for them motivating.
It is a pity that Russia and the United States lost interest in space race :-(

[Kryten]

Who's going to pay for it? And don't say ESA and JAXA, they barely cough up the money for crew operations on ISS.

[Findthepin1]

Well, if you're talking about why they didn't do more Apollo missions, or expand the Apollo program, it's because they beat the Soviets to the Moon, and then there was no point in continuing and it cost a lot, so they stopped. As for why they haven't done any separate manned lunar missions, it's because everyone is hyping about Mars and life and Mars and water and Mars, and the Moon doesn't help that cause much. It can teach us how to live under low gravity, sure, but it's easier and less expensive to do that in Low Earth Orbit in a ring or something. Same goes for living sustainably. The only thing I can see us using the Moon for in the near future are mining operations for fusion plants (He-3) or tourism (historical sites, Earthview, etc.) I think that the Moon is going to have a largely tourism- and energy-based economy in the future, because it's close to Earth and material/population exchange between the two is relatively easy and much faster.

[Bill Phil]

Public support. Even during the program they had a lack of support. But once they beat the Russians? It dropped like a brick.

[cubinator]

Because Carl Sagan was never president.

[Ten Key]

For the same reason there are no toll booths on the expressway anymore. 

Our robots got better. 

[PB666]

It would be a no win for the soviets if they went they would be no better than be second place if they failed ot would make them look incompetant. 

chinese have landed a rover on the moon, they might want a manned miusion at some later point?

 

[tater]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Because Carl Sagan was never president.

Sagan was about science, so we'd not have gone back to the moon with people (because even then probes were better than people, a situation which has only become more true as time passes).

[daniel l.]

6 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

I do not see the problem, the Russians can focus on Mars, for a variety of Americans are not discouraged after they got lost, and not once but twice, handwritten USSR, worked for them motivating.
It is a pity that Russia and the United States lost interest in space race :-(

The race was extremely expensive, Both countries went from suborbital to lunar landings in merely 10 years of progress, But the Tech behind it hadnt quite advanced as much as you might think, Instead its a matter of money, The Space race helped to bankrupt the soviets, And established american dominance in space for the 20th century, Afterwards there was no reason to continue spending so much money. But now... We will probably return within about 8 years  I hope.

[kerbiloid]

Because

1. When then space race was beginning (1950s) people yet believed in Venerian swamps and Martian channels, maybe even with dinosaurs and maidens (or at least with some mildew and moss).
Fifteen years later they were already considered as dead dull pieces of stone, interesting only for nerds.

2. In 1960s manned orbital stations (MOL, Almaz, wet/dry workshops) were planned as spy satellites, because the electronics was so unstable, that any useful satellite required a shift engineer onboard. While photos would be packed into capsules and catched in air by aircrafts.
In 1970s computers and radio links eliminated this need, killing mostly all manned orbital projects.

[G'th]

because the STS program (as originally envisioned) ended up failing. Money and general pessimism towards space were at the crux of both those issues.

 

[Bill Phil]

10 hours ago, G'th said:

because the STS program (as originally envisioned) ended up failing. Money and general pessimism towards space were at the crux of both those issues.

 

STS, as originally planned, was never even attempted. They gave Nixon a proposal to do one of three things: go to Mars and the moon with a space station and a shuttlein LEO, just do the moon and the station and the shuttle, or just the station and the shuttle. The latter was chosen. But the station wasn't built until 1998. 

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

MARS BY 1965, SATURN BY 1970! 

[John JACK]

11 hours ago, daniel l. said:

The Space race helped to bankrupt the soviets, And established american dominance in space for the 20th century

And it nearly bankrupted American space program too. Bases? Station? All they will get is this Shuttle and nowhere to fly it. Soviets at least made smart decisions not to overdo the whole race, to cut losses early enough, and to go for stations instead. Now Shuttle was scrapped without replacement, and Salyut 9 may serve for decade more.

The answer is: there is no glory, nor profit on the Moon. That means no money.

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, John JACK said:

And it nearly bankrupted American space program too. Bases? Station? All they will get is this Shuttle and nowhere to fly it. Soviets at least made smart decisions not to overdo the whole race, to cut losses early enough, and to go for stations instead. Now Shuttle was scrapped without replacement, and Salyut 9 may serve for decade more.

The answer is: there is no glory, nor profit on the Moon. That means no money.

The USA had more resources. Even going to the moon didn't bankrupt them. The Vietnam war, over the same amount of time as the Apollo Program, cost ten times as much. 

[John JACK]

1 minute ago, Bill Phil said:

Even going to the moon didn't bankrupt them.

USA as a country — not. But USA space program was left with low funding right at the end of Apollo. No permanent bases, no space stations, no nuclear engines, no Mars or whatever. All big plans were abandoned to never recover again. Soviet space program never got that much support and funding, but continued steadily up to USSR fall and even after that. And salvaged from moon race Soyuz is still in service too.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, John JACK said:

And it nearly bankrupted American space program too. Bases? Station? All they will get is this Shuttle and nowhere to fly it. Soviets at least made smart decisions not to overdo the whole race, to cut losses early enough, and to go for stations instead. Now Shuttle was scrapped without replacement, and Salyut 9 may serve for decade more.

The answer is: there is no glory, nor profit on the Moon. That means no money.

Oh, boy the honey-pot definetly needs to be emptied.

 

[Shania_L]

Because the whole point of putting a man on the moon in the first place was not science, or adventure but politics.

The only reason NASA was formed/got the funding it did, was to score political points over the perceived enemy at the time. Thus the USA went to the moon as an exercise in e-peen waving (or as it wasn't online, that'd just be peen waving I suppose).

Once those points have been scored repeating it provided no political benefit, so the money stopped, plus America was more interested in bombing the c##p out of a jungle which was becoming quite expensive.

China/India are now showing interest in the moon again as a points scoring exercise against each other, chances are one of them will achieve it and unless there is some massive goldmine discovered they will stop again.

[Bill Phil]

3 hours ago, John JACK said:

USA as a country — not. But USA space program was left with low funding right at the end of Apollo. No permanent bases, no space stations, no nuclear engines, no Mars or whatever. All big plans were abandoned to never recover again. Soviet space program never got that much support and funding, but continued steadily up to USSR fall and even after that. And salvaged from moon race Soyuz is still in service too.

The space program wasn't bankrupted either. They could have done those things. They didn't spend the majority of money they were allotted since a certain time, but funding was cut.

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

The space program wasn't bankrupted either. They could have done those things. They didn't spend the majority of money they were allotted since a certain time, but funding was cut.

Basically they fell into the SLS trap (beta).  They weren't authorized to keep going to the moon, but were expected to do some other thing.  But they needed to keep all the jobs they had from Apollo (because nobody screams like the Congressman with unemployed federal workers in his district) while moving as many as possible to "anything else".  NASA can only control their purse strings for values under $100 million dollars.  It might seem like a lot, but huge chunks of their budgets can get locked into "yesterday's program".

And don't forget, "yesterday's program" tends to keep going.  Somebody keeps tracking Voyager (or did to roughly 2000), and even collects the data about "where does the Solar System end, anyway" and other experiments on solar wind shock.  If the spacecraft is still sending data, there is a team being paid to keep nursing it on (apparently not true with the latest crowdsourced spacecraft recovery, but still those programs last.  And *somebody* kept tracking both Voyagers and Pioneers past Neptune).

NASA was built for the space race.  It did that very well.  It also does science and unmanned exploration very well (because unless it brings back politically unpopular data, Congress forgets about it and doesn't interfere).  Doing manned exploration tends to have Congress throwing every last requirement and means to grab pork out of the thing possible.

[DDE]

On ‎15‎.‎05‎.‎2016 at 5:56 AM, PB666 said:

It would be a no win for the soviets if they went they would be no better than be second place if they failed ot would make them look incompetent.

Well, ultimately, for the Soviets the manned lunar capability never materialized. Keep in mind that lunar capability generally means a ginormous rocket; the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous of the other style, with the lander pre-placed, has not yet been attempted.

The US succeeded in producing Saturn V. The Soviets banked on the N-1, probably unnecessarily abandoning the UR-700; it didn't fly too well. Eventually they delivered Energiya, which is, honestly, SLS's forgotten mommy; from what was on the drawing boards in the early 80s, it's clear that they wanted to play around with it, but the country fell apart before the second Buran flight, and hence third Energiya launch. So the second Buran ended up looking like this:

And there was zero hope for any Moon flights. Given how slowly the Angara project is progressing, it's ludicrous to expect Russia to get to the Moon in the next three decades.

The Chinese? Well, they've bought these "pieces of scrap metal" after the roof collapsed on the first Buran:

So we might yet see a rebadged Energiya.

[magnemoe]

On 15.5.2016 at 4:56 AM, PB666 said:

It would be a no win for the soviets if they went they would be no better than be second place if they failed ot would make them look incompetant. 

chinese have landed a rover on the moon, they might want a manned miusion at some later point?

 

This, the entire Soviet Moon program was secret until glasnost. 
The last decade it has been an increased focus on moon, ISRU and the need for an easier target than Mars makes it interesting.