Why did not the moon visit the moon for over 45 years?

The landing of 12 people on the moon remains one of NASA's greatest successes, if not the greatest.

The astronauts then collected rocks, took pictures, experimented, planted flags and returned home, but this week-long stay during the Apollo program did not establish a permanent human presence on the moon. .

More than 45 years after the last landing on the moon, during the Apollo mission on December 17, 1972, there are still several reasons to send humans back to the giant moon and stay there .

Researchers and contractors believe that the moon base project could become a fuel depot for distant space travel. The base could help create unprecedented space telescopes, make life easier on Mars and solve old scientific mysteries on the Earth and the Moon.

Moreover, this lunar base can represent a prosperous economy outside our world, perhaps from the premises of the lunar satellite tourism project.

Former astronaut Chris Hadfield recently told Business Insider: "The establishment of a permanent human research station on the Moon is the next logical step: we need to". a set of tools that we must invent, then test before we can dig deeper into space. "

But many astronauts and other experts point out that the biggest obstacles to lunar missions during the last four decades have been ordinary, but frustrating.

However, the hurdle facing any space program, especially for crewed missions, is the high cost.

Trump signed a law in March 2017, giving NASA a budget of about $ 19.5 billion, and the budget could reach $ 19.9 million in 2019. But that's a relatively small budget compared to the past, representing 4% of the federal budget In 1965. Over the past 40 years, NASA's budget has reached 1% of the federal budget, whereas it has represented only 0.4% in the last 15 years.

This low budget covers all parts of the agency and the ambitious projects of the James Webb Space Telescope, to the project of giant missiles and distant missions to the sun, Jupiter, Mars, asteroid belt, and d & Other programs and projects. Therefore, funding is insufficient to return to the moon, then perform an orbital survey on Mars, according to Trump's management plans, even after the scrapping of the ISS.

In a 2005 report, NASA estimated that the return to the moon would cost about $ 104 billion (about $ 133 billion today, along with inflation) over the next 13 years, and that the Apollo program would cost about $ 120 billion.

Walter Cunningham, an American astronaut, said: "Accelerated exploration is the most expensive space project, so the most difficult thing is to get political support.If Congress does not decide to pump more money into this area, All will be just a conversation. "

Referring to the March missions and returning to the moon, Cunningham added that" NASA's budget is so low that He can not do everything we've talked about here. "

One of the hurdles that NASA faces in achieving its goals is to return to the moon and go to Mars, changing the political will of the priorities of the agency. The projects change with the change of the president and his management plans. This would be consistent with the duration of his second term in the event of re-election. With this ambitious project, the current administration has canceled the project of the Barack Obama administration to work on the SLS program.

Repeated cancellations of projects and priorities by the US Space Agency resulted in the loss of about $ 20 billion and years lost without reaching any goal.

And this is not the political tussle over NASA's missions and budget that is the only reason the Moon does not return to the moon … The 4.5 billion moon years is also the trap of human death. The biggest concern is the effects of meteorites and so-called lunar dust in electrically charged areas due to certain reactions, as well as the solar wind, that affect all astronauts and can threaten their lives.

Perhaps the opportunity to return to space and colonization of Mars by the new generation of billionaires, who possess a range of missiles capable of reaching the target set.

Astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman told reporters at a round table earlier this year: "There is this generation of billionaires obsessed with space, which is wonderful, has stimulated many innovations that would not have happened .. and Lockheed, because there was no incentive to cut costs or change the way we travel in the world. space. "

Hofmann praised the work of Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, who heads Blue Origin.

The astronaut sees the desire of astronauts to return to the moon in accordance with the long-term vision of Bezos, who proposes the construction of the first lunar base based on his company's missile system, "New Glenn . "

Elon Musk also talked about the possibility that Space X's Big Falcon Rocket rocket would pave the way for regular moon visits, and SpaceX could visit the moon before NASA and Blue Origin.