missions to the moon

[Recce2]

I'm wondering why there are no modern day missions to the moon.  There were quite a few in the 60's and 70's but after that none.  It should be easier today to get there.

[Orstio]

It's easy enough, but there's no motivation for it.  Until the moon becomes a feasible resource for something, there is really no point in returning to the barren rock.

[rob schwarz]

Watch the movie, nobody cared about the third trip to the moon until there was a catastrophe. Imagine how few cared about Apollo 14, 15, and 16 when it was more of the same. People become jaded, been there done that.

If the follow-up project had been to go to Mars interest might have been maintained but Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab, no matter how impressive were not E ticket rides that excited the masses.

Look at the sci-fi movies to see the trends of peoples thoughts. In the 50's and early 60's you had gung ho explorers in sleek metal rocket ships racing off to do good things. In the late 60's and 70's you had Soylant Green, Omega Man, Mad Max (2001 is the big exceptions). People turned inward.

[Peter]

Who knows, it seems like interest in our pale neighbour is one the rise again. Next year (not certain about that) Smart-1 will pay it a visit... And other space agencies are building projects too. All unmanned, but who knows, if the data from the landers is interesting enough, they might decide to make some more history?

Peter

[spacecat27]

Well, there was another thread here on the slow pace of space exploration- and I guess I got it deleted by naming particular politicians as being pro or anti space...... (sorry Orstio, didn't think talking about folks either long dead or long out of office would offend.)

But allow me to repeat this much without naming names:

I do not believe in the popular rumor that Apollo was scaled back and then terminated because the public lost interest.... it was the news media and the politicians who lost interest.

The news media- because it wasn't "new" anymore, and politicians because other than preserving a few jobs in one congressional district or another- being pro-space was no longer politically advantageous once we had beat the Russians to the moon.

I have found that the American public overall, continues to have an interest.  Here's why- since Apollo 17, Star Trek and Star Wars movies and merchandising have generated billions and billions in revenue- probably enough to fund a visit or two to Mars!   Kennedy Space Center averages 10,000 visitors per day.... often there are more tourists there than actual workers!  A recent poll by Popular Science magazine found a majority of Americans would support expanded space exploration- even if it meant a tax increase!

[Orstio]

No need to be sorry, SpaceCat, the thread was moved to Hoaxes and Conspiracies for the subject matter.  Read through it there and you will understand why it was moved.

[rob schwarz]

That a bunch of people would have watched a space mission and the news decided it was boring and so they ignored all that potential ad revenue? Not likely in my opinion. The news goes where the story is, even if they find it distasteful.

I agree there has been a revival but at the time Star Trek was one of the only shows and it got a great demographic (they didn't know that at the time) but it was cancelled in 1969, the year we went to the moon the first time, because there were not enough people watching it. Revived interest did not appear until Star Wars in 1977, by then the Apollo program was over, the US had changed direction in space, and it would have cost a lot of money to revive.

[vishniac]

There's still that statistic about more Americans attending planetariums and museums that all live sport events together each year.

[rob schwarz]

But using sci-fi movie totals as proof is silly since children do not pay taxes but pay to see movies over and over any stats using movies are silly. NASA needs to cut the crap and start some exciting projects again. They need to point out how small their budget is compared to some of the other bloated budgets in the Federal trough.

[skyjim]

Rob - Right on!

I get tired about hearing about all that money that NASA is spending "out there" from boobs who have no idea what percentage of the federal budget goes nto spaceflight.  I sometimes point out to them that the money isn't spent "out there", but right here at home!

Jim

[spacecat27]

Every day it seems, I argue with people who go off on the 'that money could be put to better use on earth' tangent..... and I stongly point out- it IS spent on earth!  Even at the height of Apollo, people who were drawing decent paychecks from the program weren't hoarding their money- they spent it on homes, automobiles, appliances, their kid's college tuitions... and all the goods and services that make up a stong economy.
  NASA now gets less than 1% of the Federal Budget!  People say 'well, if we weren't spending all this money on space we could feed all these starving families...'  I say- just how many more starving families to you want to feed?  The Departments of Health & Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development together (if the figures haven't changed considerably in the past few years) spend NASA's entire budget about every 4.5 days!
   
 In terms of boosting the economy, and boosting the average IQ of the population- I'd say tax dollars spent on space provide the best overall return.