In February, NASA has said that it’s going to focus more on Moon missions from 2019 onward, and we will probably see man back on the moon as early as 2023. This year will also mark the 50th anniversary of our first visit to the moon, but why have we never been back?
Well, to say we’ve “never been back” since is completely false. Man has been to the moon 6 times, with Apollo 17 being the most recent back in December 1972. That was still a long time ago though, so why have we not touched our local natural satellite for so long?
Well, there’s two main reasons for this I suppose. First off: Money. NASA couldn’t really afford to get humans back onto the lunar surface due to budget cuts which in turn could be linked to the second reason – there’s not much more to do there currently, and the interest has died down a bit.
However, recent times has set off a new sort of space race with China, after made their first ever landing on the far side of the moon in January. Israel have also got their robotic mission Beresheet into lunar orbit which is expected to touch lunar surface April 11th, making them the fourth country to reach the moon’s surface.
President Trump proposed to get a manned mission to Mars by 2020, but with the amount of time it takes to get there, it’s no longer possible to achieve this by then. Instead, his focus has been adjusted to the moon and in the next 5 years NASA is expecting to get a human crew there.
Do you think that we should be sending humans back to the moon? Or should we just be using robotics, since it’s much safer and we seem to be doing well with them so far? I’m personally excited at the idea of another manned moon mission. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Also, I’m not a scientist, just enthusiastic, so if I get any facts wrong here please don’t hesitate to point them out!