I don't intend to start a debate on the moon landings. All I would say is that, having looked at both sides, I find there to be some glaring inconsistencies and issues with the official story and secondly, as I said above, it's very strange no one else has been up there since. Including the US.
I'm sure the title of being the second country to land on the moon is not that shabby and would be sought after by others. However, here we are almost half a century later and not a soul has been up there since even though it should be a lot easier to do now. Strange.
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I have to agree. It is strange that we went to the Moon, played a round of golf, picked up some rocks and then pissed off for 40 odd years. But it probably is something as simple as the Space Race was nothing more than a pissing competition. Even so it doesn't really explain why no one has been back in all that time. Americans might have been annoyed at the propaganda aspect of it, but what about Russia or Europe? A Moon shot is worth doing if only to recruit a new generation of Scientists and Engineers. It happened in America, why not elsewhere?
as I said above, it's very strange no one else has been up there since. Including the US.
Timeline of Moon exploration
There have been 25 moon missions since Apollo 17, by NASA, the USSR/Russia, Japan, ESA, China, India and the most recent one even by a commercial enterprise, in 2014. There is also a list of ten planned missions within the next ten years.
However, here we are almost half a century later and not a soul has been up there since even though it should be a lot easier to do now. Strange.
It’s not so strange when one considers that space exploration has changed from manned missions to automated ones as the technology improved. It’s hard to justify the costs of training astronauts and the risks for their lives when you can achieve the same or even better results with a robot.
Going to the moon costs alot for even one trip, so unless someone finds a compelling need to send humans up there again it'll be hard to justify spending that much cash, particularly to the politicians who control the funding. NASA did have plans to go back, even designed a new, vastly improved moon rover for longer trips with improved comfort and mobility, but the funding got slashed for that hopeful mission by the latest president, as well as any plans to replace the space shuttle. When you're coming out of a recession, it's hard to justify manned exploration of space to the common voter. Not that he was too enthusiastic about space to begin with.
Apart from everyone else has said, I'd like to also point out how the big push (and funding) for the first trip was due to essentially a political cock measuring contest between Russia and USA. Since then, and particularly since the end of the Cold War, it's been seen as a bit too expensive to send people there again. That, of course, I suspect will change now. Especially with commercial space flight becoming a thing.
Why? It's been done. We know we can do it. There isn't any more reason to risk humans when we can send robots to dangerous places, like Mars and the deepest parts of our oceans. Moon landings were daring exploits and experimental engineering. But now, just witness Curiosity and a host of other Martian explorers, who have sent us so much more info than could be obtained by a human.
We won the race. Game over. After the Super Bowl is done, the the teams don't keep playing.
Aside from that, NASA is fighting over every budget item. Different internal groups squabble over each penny. If you've ever gone through the justification of buying a box of envelopes, you'll understand the problem of trying to put through an order for a Saturn V.
Because the British basically gave up their space program early on, the Soviets had a piss-poor Moon landing program that would've been 100% fail rate, the Chinese weren't even in the race yet, leaving that to...the US.
@Doubting Thomas
There are lots of rare-earth metals there, but you can buy them way cheaper from China/Australia/Congolese warlords.
Everyone seems to be assuming the moon is something you can land on, as opposed to the golf-ball sided circle that it looks like.
Why does nobody ever go with the baldly obvious?
>Bill the TrollDunning-Kruger effect , written by a troll.
"If the Earth is flat and of infinite size, why does it appear as if the sun and moon sink below and climb up from behind the horizon? And how do timezones work - or am I just deluded by the rumours of science that it is morning instead of whatever time of the day it is in Alaska?"
Timezones probably don't "work," and are just imposed by telephones and airplanes, the only way they are ever observed.
The sun and Moon appear to sink into the ground and rise out of it probably because that's exactly what they do.
And perspective is probably the reason the moon appears larger where you live than where I live, since you're closer to it.
"Yet Bill you the moon actually is the size of golf ball. Then why would it appear bigger if you are closer to it? It getting bigger as we get closer only makes sense if the moon is bigger."
Apparently, of you're seeing a larger moon, it probably is larger, and I was mistaken about it being golf-ball sized. It probably seems golf-ball sized to me because I'm farther away from it.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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