Table of Contents
Will we ever go to the moon again?
NASA had officially planned to send astronauts back to the moon by 2024, but independent experts and its own acting administrator had already doubted that timeline was realistic.
Why haven’t we set up a base on the moon?
A lunar base built on the surface would need to be protected by improved radiation and micrometeoroid shielding. Building the lunar base inside a deep crater would provide at least partial shielding against radiation and micrometeoroids. “Printed” lunar soil would provide both “radiation and temperature insulation.
Why can’t we move to the moon?
Because there’s no air, there’s no wind, which means no erosion. That’s made the dust particles on the lunar surface—called regolith—especially troublesome.
Do we need the Moon to survive?
The moon influences life as we know it on Earth. It influences our oceans, weather, and the hours in our days. Without the moon, tides would fall, nights would be darker, seasons would change, and the length of our days would alter.
Why do we want to go back to the Moon?
After that massive setback, President George W. Bush came up with a bold new mission for NASA, perhaps with the thought that if lives are going to be put at risk with space exploration, we might as well shoot for the moon. The goal: return to the moon by 2020, live and work on the lunar surface, then go to Mars and other planets.
Why are there no astronauts on the Moon?
Astronauts often say the reasons humans haven’t returned to the lunar surface are budgetary and political hurdles, not scientific or technical challenges. Private companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX may be the first entities to return people to the moon.
Why was it so hard to get to the Moon?
Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald looks at some of the reasons why getting to the moon now, decades later, is harder than ever. The first test flight, Apollo 4, was a risky “all up” test, where the entire rocket was flown with everything in place. Remarkably, it was a total success.
Who was president when Neil Armstrong went back to the Moon?
President Richard Nixon welcomed Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew back in 1969, and there were six more Apollo missions. But by the very next year, in 1970, Nixon cut NASA’s budget by hundreds of millions of dollars and said it was no longer a special program.