Astronauts explain why people have not been to the moon in more than 4 decades

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon's surface near the lunar module leg Eagle during mission Apollo 11, mission commander Neil Armstrong took this picture with a 70mm lunar surface camera NASA

The Moon is the closest celestial body to Earth Using modern rockets and spacecraft, the trip can be done in 3 days, but more than 45 years Since the end of the Apollo mission, only 12 people have already walked on the moon and the technology to get there and come back safely there. is developing in leaps and bounds over the next four decades. [19659005] Even Elon Musk in his now famous presentation "Making Life Multiplanetary" said last year: "It is 20 17, we should have a lunar base now! What is happening? "

The obvious questions are therefore why space agencies and private space industry actors have not already started building on the Moon. Frame Chris Hadfield, former astronaut who has lived and worked on It is important to understand why it is vital to surrender to the Moon

The Moon is about to be the perfect place to stay. gasoline for space ships and rockets that travel in deep space and this makes sense because lifting the Earth by carrying all the fuel needed for deep space travel makes it difficult. Raise the light of the Earth, refuel on or in the vicinity of the Moon, and continue to travel in the cosmos is a perfect plan that even Musk actively advocates.

Research powered by moon-based space telescopes is another great option. In addition to making Moon the ultimate destination for space vacations, despite the horrible ways in which human tissues interact with the dust of the Moon.

But the moon is still largely unexplored, with the exception of some lunar orbits. Only 12 humans have already walked on the moon. "A permanent human research station on the moon is the next logical step," says Chris Hadfield

. The Moon is three days away and now, with the dominant technologies, he noted and added, "We can afford to get it wrong, and not kill everyone, and we have everything a lot of things that we have to invent and then test to learn before going further. "

The real reason humans have not gone to the moon is simple – it's money and politics." NASA is arguably the most the world's largest, most well-funded and influential fund, and it is shrinking.It faces tremendous budget cuts and its share of the country's expenditures has dropped dramatically over the last 50 years.

" The portion of NASA's federal budget peaked at 4% in 1965. For 40 years, it has remained below 1%, "said Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut, during a Congressional testimony in 2015.

NASA in 2005 reported that returning to the moon is expensive. It would cost between $ 104 billion and $ 133 billion in today 's money. In comparison, the entire Apollo program from the 1960s would cost only $ 120 billion in dollars today, the report notes.

The next obstacle is politics. "Human exploration is the most expensive space adventure and, therefore, the most difficult for political support," said Cunningham in his testimony, reports Scientific American. Unless the government gives more money, "it's just what we do here."

When President Donald Trump took office, he immediately dropped the planned March program by President Obama. NASA has been dealing with politicians changing their primary purposes of space exploration whenever an administration changes.

"We are always asked to change direction every time we get a new president, and that just makes you do a negative job," Scott Kelly, the astronaut who had spent nearly a year in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS), told the Washington Post in January of this year.

"I hope that someday we will have a president who will say : "You know what, we'll leave NASA on the road where they are, and see what NASA can do if we untie our hands," he added.

Presidents and politicians like to Spatial missions must last for many administrations because planning, development, construction, testing and final launch will take decades, so Presidents do not like having programs that will overcome two administrations in the future, underlines Hadfi Eld summarizes precisely why humans have not been on the moon for more than four decades and people reaching Mars might not go through a government backed agency for this reason.