You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

0
0

[–] Apeabel ago 

No excuses and I never claimed NASAs budget was lower or they're worse off than during their glory days. What I'm saying is still true. They can't pull of a moon mission with their current budget.

From 59-68 they had a few satellites, small space stations and the moon missions. That's it. Today? There are:

  • hundreds of active satellites
  • space debris that needs monitoring
  • data from satellites, rovers and probes that needs processing
  • the International Space Station
  • exploration missions like JUNO and New Horizons
  • exploration missions with landing crafts like Curiosity
  • Monitoring of the Earth (climate, the atmosphere, weather, magnetic fields, etc.)
  • R & D of new technologies and new spacecraft/launch platforms

and more, just so many thing we didn't know back then. There are too many constant expenses and expectations for there to be more moon landings. I think you might give NASA less credit than they deserve, they've done more than every other space agency in the world, as they should.

0
0

[–] Dfens ago 

Clearly if NASA has put men on the moon in the past for that amount of money they also can now. It is irrational to believe that it would cost more to do the same thing today than it cost to do it for the first time 50 years ago.

And, frankly, I don't care if other countries are wasting their resources by failing their constituents. The "2 wrongs make a right" argument does not impress me.

0
0

[–] Apeabel ago 

Clearly you're right. A man can set foot on the moon today. It just isn't any priority at all to the countries that could do it now. Sure it would be benefitial to go - but the people that decide what projects get funded aren't interested. I'm not sure how a manned Orion launch today would compare to an Apollo moon mission financially, I'm sure it's similar even considering inflation.

Anyways, how much of that are failures of space agencies or the governments that fund them I couldn't tell ya.