From 1969 to 1972, 12 astronauts walked on the surface of the moon, but ever since then we haven't sent anybody back. Obviously, the space program has continued, so why have we given up on sending people to the moon after all the buzz surrounding it initially? We've talked about sending astronauts to the surface of Mars in the future, but it seems like going back to the moon simply isn't being discussed. From the real reasons we went to the moon in the first place to the technological advancements it would take, let's take a look at the real reason we haven't been back to the moon.
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00:00On July 20th, 1969, one of the most momentous events in human history occurred.
00:06People walked on the moon.
00:08Eventually, the United States completed six moon landings, and then we suddenly stopped.
00:13This is the real reason we haven't been back to the moon.
00:17One of the key drivers of the USA's quest to land humans on the moon was a sense of
00:22competition with the Soviet Union.
00:24The Soviet government poured money and expertise into their space program in the 1950s, and
00:29achieved several amazing firsts in the process.
00:32Sputnik was the first artificial satellite orbiting Earth in 1957, and in 1961, Soviet
00:38pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to orbit the Earth.
00:42By the early 1960s, it seemed obvious that the Soviets were going to be the first nation
00:46to land someone on the moon.
00:48The Cold War was in high gear, and the potential technological and strategic advantages such
00:53a feat would give the Russians was a concern.
00:56As noted by former NASA chief historian Roger Launius, the space race was really a proxy
01:01war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
01:04Instead of deploying tanks and troops on Earth, the two countries deployed scientists and
01:09engineers in an effort to claim the moon as their own, if only symbolically.
01:13Those Cold War conditions no longer exist, and so far, no countries have risen to the
01:18same rivalry that the USA and the Soviet Union had, removing a key reason we went to the
01:23moon in the first place.
01:26It took more than a decade to get us to the moon the first time.
01:29It also took an incredible amount of money and effort, both mental and physical.
01:33And it could have gone wrong at any time.
01:36Technology could have failed, astronauts could have died, or a new president could have simply
01:40canceled the project.
01:41The political risks were so high, it's actually miraculous the project succeeded even one
01:46time.
01:47And those political risks have only gotten worse in the decades since our last visit
01:51to the moon.
01:52Scientists have frequently suggested a return to the moon, and NASA has come up with several
01:56plans to do so, but once the price tag shoots up and the challenges become clear, these
02:01plans are usually shifted to goals perceived as more practical.
02:05That's the other problem.
02:06The benefits of going back to the moon are largely theoretical.
02:10Scientific research is a key reason to go back, but there's no clear profit margin.
02:15A moon base could be used as a refueling depot, but until there's a more practical reason
02:19to go to and from the moon, or to use the moon as a layover on our way somewhere else,
02:24the risks associated with such a project are frightening.
02:27Put simply, no politician wants to have their name associated with an expensive boondoggle
02:32or tragic disaster.
02:35It's absolutely true that President John F. Kennedy was the man who pushed for going to
02:39the moon, citing the need to fight the Russians' efforts to dominate space.
02:43But the truth is a little less inspiring, because part of the reason President Kennedy
02:47pushed so hard for the space program was his need for some good publicity, after a
02:51series of political disasters had his administration reeling.
02:55"...and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age
03:02of space.
03:03We mean to be a part of it."
03:06Kennedy began his presidency convinced that a moon landing would be far too expensive
03:10to seriously consider.
03:11Then, he had a very bad, no-good year in 1961.
03:15The Soviet Union made the USA look bad when they put Yuri Gagarin in orbit around the
03:20Earth, and made the argument that we couldn't afford to go to the moon look kind of silly.
03:25Then Kennedy greenlit the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba.
03:29This was a disaster for Kennedy.
03:31It was so poorly organized and incompetently executed, it made Kennedy look foolish and
03:36weak.
03:37It changed his attitude towards his military leaders and advisers, and it forced him to
03:40look for a way to change the conversation.
03:43Announcing a bold, moonshot mission was ideal.
03:46It made him look like a visionary leader, and it made the USA look like a technological
03:50superpower.
03:51So if you want us to go back to the moon, we might need to find a new political disaster.
03:57Landing on and strutting around the moon in 1969 was an incredible feat.
04:00"...that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
04:09Sure, it cost a tremendous amount of money and effort, but you'd be forgiven for assuming
04:13that once we've achieved a goal like this, it must get easier to do.
04:17Unfortunately, that assumption would be wrong, which is one big reason we haven't been back
04:21since the end of the original Apollo program in 1972.
04:25As noted by the MIT Technology Review, because the original moon-landing project was positioned
04:31as a race against the Soviets, the project wasn't designed for efficiency.
04:36Shortcuts were used wherever possible, and no one thought to build sustainable supply
04:40chains.
04:41The end result is a system where the equivalent of two or three jumbo jets worth of technology
04:46and engineering is just burned up or thrown away, never to be used again.
04:50In other words, the whole system of getting people to the moon was never designed for
04:54repetition.
04:55It's actually amazing we ran 17 Apollo missions and got to the moon six times using it.
05:00If we want to get serious about going back, we'll need to find a sustainable, efficient
05:04system for doing so.
05:06Don't hold your breath, though.
05:07In 2007, Google announced the XPRIZE, offering $20 million to the first non-governmental
05:13organization to complete a lunar landing.
05:15Since then, only two crafts have successfully landed on the moon, and both were robots sent
05:20by the Chinese government.
05:23Put simply, getting to the moon and back is incredibly dangerous, and the danger is exacerbated
05:28by the fact that Apollo craft design has never really been the safest way to travel off the
05:33planet.
05:34The frantic race to put men on the moon in the 1960s led to a lot of corner-cutting in
05:38terms of the technology and engineering used.
05:42After the success of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the sense of urgency that drove the project
05:47evaporated.
05:48We'd beaten the Soviet Union to the moon, after all, and every subsequent Apollo mission
05:52seemed to underscore how little we got back out of these expensive and stress-inducing
05:57missions.
05:58It all came to a head in 1970 when the Apollo 13 mission went horribly wrong.
06:03An explosion jettisoned the crew's oxygen supply and damaged the module, leading to
06:07a tense, frightening trip home in a crippled ship.
06:10While the astronauts returned safely, the incident underscored the fact that the Apollo
06:15spacecraft was, in the words of historian John Logsdon,
06:19"...being pushed right up to the edge of its safe performance."
06:23Not long afterwards, President Nixon cut funding for the moon landings and shifted NASA's focus
06:28to cheaper, safer projects like Skylab and the space shuttle.
06:33The computers on the Apollo lunar modules were incredibly basic compared to today's
06:37hardware.
06:38In fact, as Real Clear Science notes, the smartphone in your pocket is probably 100,000
06:44times more powerful than the computers in the Apollo spacecraft.
06:47Heck, even some calculators released in the 1980s were more powerful.
06:52But computers are just part of the technology required to get people to and from the moon,
06:57and their limited capabilities were by design, as they needed to be extremely efficient in
07:01order to use very little electricity.
07:04The lack of serious advances can be seen in how similar today's SpaceX launches are to
07:09the launches of the 1960s.
07:11Not much has changed, and that's one huge barrier to going back to the moon.
07:16Legacy is always on politicians' minds.
07:19John F. Kennedy was the man who launched the U.S. moonshot, but he didn't live to see the
07:24mission succeed.
07:25Even if he hadn't been assassinated in 1963, by the time we got to the moon in 1969, Kennedy
07:30would have been out of office anyway, leaving another president to revel in the glory of
07:35the Apollo 11 landing.
07:37That kind of timing makes presidents hesitate, since it can take a decade or more to fund,
07:42design, build, and test something as complex as a moon landing.
07:47Any president that pushes for such a project is almost guaranteed to be out of office by
07:51the time it reaches fruition.
07:53In today's political climate where presidents are never not campaigning, that's too long
07:57to wait.
07:58And incoming administrations, especially if they're of the opposing party, have a habit
08:03of canceling big projects put into motion by their predecessors so they can deny them
08:07the credit.
08:08In fact, Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, has argued pretty plainly that the only
08:13way we're getting back to the moon is if both political parties in this country put aside
08:17their differences.
08:19The Space Shuttle program might have been a step back from the incredible achievement
08:23of putting people on the moon, but it kept humans in space and served an incredibly important
08:28purpose both in preserving the USA's position as a leader in space exploration and people's
08:33excitement about it.
08:35When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded moments after takeoff in 1986, it was a horrifying
08:40moment that chilled the entire nation.
08:43That event led to changes in how NASA worked and how the Space Shuttle program was used.
08:48It was scaled back, and some of the missions the shuttle was performing were shifted back
08:52to older, more reliable technologies.
08:55Then in 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated when returning to Earth.
09:00As PBS reports, this second disaster had a much broader effect on the space program.
09:06President Bush and his administration questioned whether it was worth putting human lives in
09:10danger by putting them routinely into space.
09:13This new, more cautious attitude seriously slowed down our chances of returning to the
09:18moon.
09:19Been there, done that doesn't seem like it would be a viable political or scientific
09:24attitude, but it sums up the basic attitude of many when it comes to the moon.
09:28In fact, many people in the government and in space-related agencies think we should
09:33be focusing on Mars as a priority.
09:35As Scientific American reports, the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space,
09:40and Technology introduced a bill in 2020 to make exploration of the Red Planet NASA's
09:45official stretch goal.
09:47Not only is Mars a much more valuable destination in terms of scientific research and expanding
09:52our understanding of the universe, it's also a goal that has captured public's imagination.
09:57That doesn't mean going back to the moon is completely off the table, however.
10:01As The Atlantic reports, most experts agree that the only way we're going to get human
10:06beings to Mars reasonably safely is if we build a relay station of sorts on the moon.
10:12Astronauts would travel from the Earth to the moon, refuel and make other preparations,
10:16and then launch from the moon to Mars, simplifying the logistics of the trip.
10:21But that means we're still not going back to the moon until someone puts some serious
10:24money, talent, and other resources behind a trip to Mars.
10:29When NASA announced plans to get American astronauts back on the moon by 2024, many
10:34thought it was overly optimistic.
10:36But even if the schedule slipped, it was an exciting development, and it led to serious
10:40work on creating a next-generation rocket called the Space Launch System, along with
10:45a new crew module called the Orion.
10:48The program has hit some bumps.
10:49It's already $2 billion over budget, but it was scheduled to be tested for the first time
10:54in 2020.
10:55But just like every other industry, the aerospace world has been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
11:01NASA recently announced that it would be forced to shut down two important facilities.
11:05The Michoud Assembly Facility and the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
11:10The closures were necessary because employees there tested positive for the coronavirus,
11:14and they've already had a big impact.
11:17NASA had to officially suspend the Space Launch System program for the time being, dealing
11:22a serious blow to any chances of a return to the moon.