The frustrating reason why humans have been absent from spaceflight for some time

 What humans could do with the techniques of 1969 Why doesn't it seem possible now?

The landing of 12 people on the surface of the Moon is considered one of NASA's greatest achievements, if not the greatest.

On their journey to the moon, the astronauts collected rocks, took pictures, conducted experiments, planted some flags, and then returned home. But this week-long stay during the Apollo flight did not establish a permanent human presence on the surface of the Moon.

More further than 45 years after the last moon landing on Apollo 17 in December 1972 there are still many incentives for humans to return to Earth's large dusty moon and stay there.

Researchers and undertakers believe that creating a base on the moon's surface could serve as a fuel depot for deep spaceflight, it is also possible that this base could contribute to the creation of renewable space telescopes, and possibly facilitate living on Mars. Also, this rule will help solve ancient scientific mysteries about the earth and the formation of the moon. The lunar base could become a thriving economy outside the world, and it might be possible to build a building for lunar space tourism.

 It is only three days away from us. Instead of killing everyone, we can handle the mistake. We have a whole set of things that we have to invent and then test to learn before we can go deeper.

Despite this, many astronauts and other experts point out that the major obstacles facing manned lunar missions over the last four decades are naive if not frustrating.
Getting to the moon is expensive - but it's not that big

The crucial and difficult obstacle facing any spaceflight program, especially for missions involving personnel, is the enormous cost.

NASA allocates a budget of about $ 19.5 billion, according to the law signed by President Donald Trump in March 2017, and it could rise to $ 19.9 billion in 2019.

Which one sounds like a stroke of luck? - To think that the total financial support is divided between all departments of the agency and ambitious projects, which include: the (James Webb) space telescope, the giant rocket project called (the Space Launch System), and the distant missions to the sun, Jupiter Mars, the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt and the edge of the solar system. Or the US military gets a budget of about $ 600 billion a year. Especially since only one project within these projects - for example, modernization and expansion of the US nuclear arsenal - has a budget of approximately $ 1.7 trillion over 30 years.

Also, NASA's current budget is somewhat small to its previous budget.

Apollo 7 astronaut (Walter Cunningham) said during his time in Congress in 2015: “The US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) share of the federal budget reached its peak when it reached 4% in 1965. Over the past forty years, it has remained less than "1%, and during the past 15 years it has decreased to about 0.4% of the federal budget."

Trump's budget encourages a return to the Moon and then an orbital visit to Mars. But given the increasing costs associated with NASA's SLS missile program, there may not be enough funding to reach any destination, even if the funding for the International Space Station is soon skipped.

It was estimated in a 2005 NASA report that returning to the moon would cost about $ 104 billion (equivalent to $ 138 billion today, taking inflation into account for nearly 13 years), as the Apollo program cost about $ 120 billion in the current dollar.

Cunningham stated, according to the journal "Scientific American": "Manned exploration is the most expensive space project, which will make it difficult to obtain political support for the project if the state represented in Congress does not decide, which in turn can allocate more funds for the project." Until that happens, what is said is just words. ”

Referring to the missions to go to Mars and return to the moon, Cunningham added, "NASA has a very low budget to do all the projects that we're talking about here."
 Crisis with superiors

The immediate goal of the Trump administration is to send astronauts to the "ocean of the moon" during 2023. That would be at the end of Trump's second term if he is reelected.

Herein lies another major problem: party politics.

Why would you believe what any president would tell about his prediction about what will happen after two officials in the future? Says Hadfield. This is just talked.

From an astronaut's point of view, it's all about the mission. The process of designing, engineering, and testing a spacecraft that can carry humans and deliver them to another world takes more than two terms in the office easily. But we can predict this with a pattern of incoming presidents and lawmakers who have canceled the space exploration priorities that previous leaders had enjoyed.

Astronaut (Scott Kelly), who spent a year in space, wrote during January 2016: “I would like the next president to allocate a budget that allows us to accomplish the mission that he is asking us to do, whatever that mission.” (And that was before Trump took office.)

But presidents and Congress seem uninterested in continuing down this path.

For example, in 2004, the Bush administration tasked NASA with the task of figuring out a way to replace the space shuttle that was to be converted into junk, as well as return to the moon. After that, I reached the agency to the Constellation program, which directs astronauts to the moon using a rocket called (Ares (God of War in the Greeks)) and a spaceship called (Orion).

NASA spent $ 9 billion designing, building, and testing hardware for the human spaceflight program over five years. However, after President Barack Obama took office - the GAO released a report that NASA was unable to estimate the cost of the Constellation program, forcing Obama to cancel the program and sign the Space Launch Rocket System (SLS) instead.

The Trump administration has not canceled the SLS but has pursued a different target than the primary goal of launching astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

These frequent changes have resulted in costly scrapping of NASA priorities after another, losing nearly $ 20 billion, and plenty of years, wasted time, and momentum.

"I am disappointed that they are so slow and they are constantly changing their plans," said Jim Lovell, an Apollo 8 astronaut, speaking to "Business Insider" in 2017. I'm not excited about anything soon. We'll see what they do. ”

Buzz Aldrin stated in testimony to Congress in 2015 that he believed the desire to return to the Moon should come from the Congress building itself.

“American leadership is inspiring the world by doing what no other country can do,” Aldrin wrote in a pre-prepared statement. We proved it briefly 45 years ago. I don't think we've repeated this since. I believe that commitment must come from Congress with the desire to lead, or what is called the dual will.

The real force driving the government's commitment to return to the Moon is the will of the American people, who in turn vote for politicians and help shape their policy priorities. But public interest in lunar exploration has always been tepid.

Even at the height of the Apollo program - after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon's surface - only 53% of Americans believed the program was worth the cost. In most cases, the US vote for the Apollo merit will be less than 50%.

Today, 55% of Americans believe that NASA should make returning to the moon a priority, even though a quarter of those do not think it should be a top priority,  In contrast, 44% of people surveyed believe that astronauts should never be sent to the moon.

It is worth noting that the support for the exploration operations carried out by the Mars crew is greater. 63% of people think it should be NASA's priority, and 91% of people believe that scanning the bodies of the deadly asteroids is important.
 Challenges are outside politics

The political tug of war over NASA's mission and budget is not the only reason why people have not returned to the moon. The Moon is a 4.5 billion-year-old human death trap, and it should not be fooled or underestimated.

The surface of the moon is littered with craters and rocks that threaten the safe landings of astronauts. On the first moon landing in 1969, the US government spent an estimated billions of dollars at today's price to develop, launch, and deliver satellites to the moon, so that they could study its surface map and thus help mission planners explore potential Apollo landing sites.

The biggest concern, however, is the meteorite traces the age has created: rocky debris, or so-called lunar dust.

Madhu Thangavelu, an aeronautical engineer at the University of Southern California, noted in 2014 that the moon is covered: “With an upper layer of lunar dust in the form of talc **, at a depth of several inches in some areas, it is also electrically charged due to its interaction with The solar wind, this layer is made of slippery and viscous material, which spoils space suits, vehicles, and systems very quickly.

 Talc (or talc): It is a mineral composed of hydrogenated magnesium silicate. It is widely used in its disassembled form as a powder. It exists in fibrous masses. The monocrystalline form of the shot is rare. It is used in a wide variety of industries such as paper, plastics, paints, coatings, rubber, foodstuffs, electric cables, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and ceramics.

Peggy Whitson, an astronaut who has lived in space for 665 days, says that the Apollo work "had a lot of trouble with dust."

Additionally, there is a problem with sunlight. Since the surface of the moon is a bare field that is directly exposed to the harsh rays of the sun for 14.75 days each time, the moon, unlike the Earth, does not have a protective shell. Moreover, it will plunge into total darkness over the next 14.75 days, making its surface one of the coldest places in the universe.

It is worth noting that a small nuclear reactor developed by NASA, called Kilopower, can provide astronauts with electricity during lunar nights that last for weeks, and that will be useful in other worlds as well, including Mars.

Thanjavilo wrote: "There is no place or environment more extreme and difficult to live in than the moon, and despite this, it remains the best since it is an environment so close to Earth, there is no better place than it to learn how to live far from planet Earth or in space."

NASA has designed space suits that are resistant to dust and the sun, but we are not sure if this equipment will be used soon, as some of them were part of the now-canceled Constellation program.
A generation of billionaires could get there (space rich)
A group of rockets capable of reaching the moon is on the horizon.

 The innovation that has been occurring over the past 10 years in spaceflight would not have happened if only NASA, Boeing, and Lockheed had embraced it. Because there was no incentive to reduce the costs or change the way we do it. ”

Hoffman points to the work done by Elon Musk and his missile company, SpaceX, as well as (Jeff Bezos), who runs a clandestine aviation company called Blue Origin.

The desire of many astronauts to return to the moon fits with Bezos' long-term vision. Bezos put forward a plan in front of Washington, which stipulates that building the first lunar base using the New Glenn missile system coming from Blue Origin in April,

Musk also talked a lot about how to pave the way for regular visits to the moon with the Big Falcon Rocket being developed by SpaceX.
 SpaceX may visit the moon even before NASA or Blue Origin. The company's new Falcon Heavy missile can launch a small Crew Dragon space capsule to the moon and return to Earth - and Musk said two citizens have already paid a large sum of money to go on this trip.

“I dream that the moon will someday become part of the Earth’s economic sphere - just like the geostationary orbit and the low Earth orbit,” Hoffman said. That the outer space of the geostationary orbit is part of our everyday economy. One day I think that the moon will be, and this is something we are working for. ”

Astronauts have no doubts that we will return to the moon, and then to Mars. It's a matter of time.