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If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

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Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#7

Looks like commenters here did not read the subtitle: Outside study blames NASA’s bureaucracy and contracting practices for delaying lunar missions

Well, the article does also say:

> NASA has routinely faced similar criticism from some lawmakers and advocates of commercial space ventures, but seldom in a report released by the agency itself.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#8
THere is little POINT in putting a man on the moon after you've done it.

We have plenty of moon rock to run experiments on.

Any micro/low gravity experiment can be run cheaper in LEO.

There aren't any valuable resources there to exploit.

It's a bit like asking why we don't build a habitat on the bottom of the Marians Trench - we COULD, but why WOUDL we?

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#9
post #8

THere is little POINT in putting a man on the moon after you've done it. We have plenty of moon rock to run experiments on. Any micro/low gravity experiment can be run cheaper in LEO. There aren't any valuable resources there to exploit. It's a bit like asking why we don't build a habitat on the bottom of the Marians Trench - we COULD, but why WOUDL we?

Lunar resources could have great value just by their location. The energy cost to lift them into space is much lower than from Earth. Doing anything ambitious in space would require a lot of material, which has limited our ambitions since the 1970s.

(Asteroids might serve better, though: a wider variety of stuff, comparable in energy cost but farther away.)

I wish the damn article would link to this new report, or at least give me the keywords to search for.

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