Why Hasn't America Gone Back To The Moon?

  • 11 years ago
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"One Small Step For A Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind"

Those very famous first words were spoken by Neil Armstrong on the moon around 44 years ago and the last time a human step foot on the moon was 41 years ago, almost to the day.

With the Chinese landing on the moon on Saturday it begs the question, why hasn't the United States or any other country displayed any interest in racing back to the moon?

First we need to understand why the United States decided to go to the moon in the first place. It all comes down to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

When the United States heard that the Soviet Union had managed to successfully launch a satellite into orbit around Earth the space race was on to the moon. We weren't going there to explore, America was going there to show up other countries. NASA couldn't be the first to space, but they could try and be the first on the moon.

In 2005's money, NASA estimates that the Apollo program which saw six groups of men make their way to the moon at different times, cost a cool $170 billion. That means each Apollo launch which managed to make it to the moon cost on average $29 billion.