The landing of 12 astronauts on the moon remains the biggest achievement of the American aerospace agency NASA. During these landings, astronauts collected samples of lunar soil, conducted video and photographs of the satellite, conducted experiments on its surface, set flags, and then returned home. But in the end, none of the missions of the Apollo program carried out over the long weeks did not lead to the fact that mankind could gain a foothold on the Earth's satellite for a long time. And now, more than 45 years after the last manned landing on the lunar surface - as part of the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 - America finally had enough reasons to return to this gray ball, similar to Swiss cheese …
Scientists and entrepreneurs from around the world believe that an inhabited base on the moon could be the perfect springboard for space missions into deep space. It can be used as a space fueling station, incredible space telescopes can be built there, and the base can also be used as a platform to prepare humanity for the colonization of Mars. The work carried out on the lunar base will help solve many scientific mysteries related to the nature of the Earth and its satellite. In the end, the Moon may one day turn into a separate economic hub, possibly associated with the same sphere of space tourism.
“A permanent research station on the moon will be the next logical step in conquering the solar system. And we're almost ready to do it without killing anyone,”former NASA astronaut Chris Hadfield shared with Business Insider.
"Then, however, we have to come up with and develop a bunch of other things before we can go further."
Most astronauts and astronautics experts, the newspaper writes, agree that the greatest difficulties that have kept mankind from continuing to explore the moon for more than four decades have turned out to be outrageously very commonplace.
To fly to the moon is very expensive
The main reason that stood in the way of any space program, especially when it came to manned missions, has always been related to the issue of cost. In the budget signed in March 2017 by US President Donald Trump, the NASA aerospace agency allocated about $ 19.5 billion with the prospect of increasing funds to $ 19.9 billion in 2019. In both cases, this turned out to be significantly less than what the agency was allocated in the past.
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For the average person, this amount may seem astronomical. But it is worth looking at what ambitious tasks the American space agency is setting itself - the James Webb space telescope, the development of the new Space Launch System, missions to explore the Sun, Jupiter, Mars, the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt, as well as the edge Solar system - and this amount is starting to look ridiculous. Especially against the background of the US military budget, which is allocated an average of about $ 600 billion annually. One of the projects under this budget, for example, is the modernization of the American nuclear arsenal. According to experts, at least $ 1.7 trillion will be spent on its implementation within 30 years.
“NASA received the most money in 1965. Then the agency accounted for 4 percent of the federal budget. For the past 40 years, the country has allocated less than 1 percent of the budget for the space industry, while the last 15 years this figure was 0.4 percent,”said Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut in 2015.
The list of tasks included in the budget adopted by Trump includes the reincarnation of the program for returning a man to the moon, as well as a manned mission to fly around Mars. But given the ever-inflating projected cost of their implementation, and NASA's constant delays in the development of the SLS launch vehicle, the money allocated may not be enough for any of these tasks. Even if the United States withdraws its financial support for the International Space Station project earlier than originally planned.
A 2005 NASA report indicated the approximate cost of returning a man to the moon. To do this, over 13 years, the United States would have to spend about 104 billion dollars (133 billion today, taking into account inflation). The same Apollo program has cost American taxpayers about $ 120 billion by today's standards.
“Manned space missions are the most expensive venture. They are very difficult to implement, so it is incredibly difficult to get political support for them. And without the confident support of the government, they will remain just idle chatter,”said Cunningham.
"The NASA budget is too small for us to start seriously discussing all the things touched upon today," - summed up then Cunningham.
Change of power
Trump has set the goal of returning Americans to "near-moon space" by 2023. That is, approximately by the end of his presidency, if, of course, he is re-elected for a second term. This brings us to the second big problem - the possibility of "political sabotage".
“Do you really believe everything that the president promises to accomplish by the end of his second term in office, when even the first has not passed yet? It's just chatter,”Hadfield commented to Business Insider.
The process of developing, building and testing a spacecraft capable of transporting people to another planet in time could easily exceed two presidential terms. However, there is still a certain amount of predictability here: an important factor will be the willingness of the new government to follow the priorities set by the previous leader of the country.
“I would like the next president to support a budget that would enable us to carry out the space missions we have asked for support. Whatever these missions are, wrote astronaut Scott Kelly, answering questions from Reddit users in 2016, before Trump took office as the new US president.
As it turned out later, neither the new president nor the US Congress began to adhere to the plans and tasks set by the previous leaders. However, this was not the first time for the United States.
For example, in 2004, the Bush administration challenged NASA to develop a new program that would replace the aging Space Shuttle program. In addition, the agency was tasked with figuring out how to get back to the moon. This is how the Constellation program appeared, within the framework of which it was planned to land astronauts on the moon using the new Ares heavy-class launch vehicle, as well as the Orion spacecraft.
In five years, NASA spent $ 59 billion on the development, creation and testing of equipment for the program. After Barack Obama took the presidency, the new government that came with him prepared a report claiming that the US space agency was unable to correctly assess the cost of the Constellation program. As a result, Obama closed the program and signed a new one aimed at developing a new space launch system (SLS).
After coming to power, Trump did not abandon the SLS program, but he changed his main priorities. Instead of landing on an asteroid proposed by Obama and his administration, Trump wanted to return a man to the moon, as well as engage in missions related to the exploration of Mars.
This private change in direction for NASA has had its consequences. The US lost about $ 20 billion on this, as well as years of wasted and wasted time.
“I am very disappointed with such slow attempts to do something else. I have no hope for the future. I’ll just watch what happens next,”commented American Apollo 8 astronaut James Arthur Lovell to Business Insider in 2017.
Buzz Aldrin (the second person to set foot on the lunar surface) back in 2015 expressed the hope that the decision to return to the moon would be made on Capitol Hill.
“America's leadership and consistency in things no other nation is capable of inspires the world. We demonstrated this 45 years ago. I don’t believe that we will stop there,”Aldrin said in a prepared speech.
The real driving force behind the government's drive to return to the moon is the will of the American people, who voted for this government and helped shape policy priorities. However, with regard to the study of the moon, notes the publication Business Insider, the public interest in this topic has always been, if not indifferent, then not as strong as it might seem.
Even at the height of the Apollo program, after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface, only 53 percent of Americans believed the program was worth the money it spent on it. In most other cases, interest in the Apollo program among the American population has always been well below 50 percent.
Today, 55 percent of Americans believe that NASA should make returning to the moon a priority, but only a quarter of these people believe that this should be the most important task for the US space agency (according to June polls). At the same time, 44 percent of the population believe that sending astronauts to the moon is generally a pointless task and should not be done.
Support for a manned mission to Mars program is surprisingly higher, with 63 percent of the population believing NASA should prioritize this goal. At the same time, 91 percent of people consider it important to continue and expand programs to observe and repel space threats (asteroids, meteorites, etc.).
Complexities outside of politics
Political controversies over NASA's space missions and the agency's budget are not the only reason why humans still haven't returned to the moon. Our satellite is a real death trap 4.5 billion years old. It cannot be underestimated. She will not forgive any weakness. She will simply kill anyone who dares to approach her without preparing.
Its surface is covered with craters and razor-sharp stones, making it difficult to land. Prior to the historic satellite landing, the US government spent billions of dollars developing, launching, and delivering spacecraft to the moon to map the surface of the moon and help space mission planners find the safest landing site for Apollo 11.
Concerns were also raised (and continue to cause) the fact that myriads of meteorite impacts turned the surface of the Moon into a very dangerous substance - regolith (or moon dust).
“The moon is covered with a very thin talc-like dust layer several inches deep in some regions. This dust is very abrasive and electrostatically charged through its interaction with the solar wind. As a result, it sticks to everything that comes into contact with it, getting on suits, spacecraft and electronics,”wrote Madhu Tangavelu, an aeronautical engineer at the University of Southern California, in 2014.
American astronaut Peggy Whitson, who spent a total of 665 days in low-Earth orbit, recently reported that the Apollo missions faced major problems with this dust.
“If we want to conduct long-term missions and even more so build permanent housing there, then we need to deal with this problem,” Whitson said.
Sunlight is another problem. The lunar surface can turn into a hot surface for 14.75 days due to direct sunlight falling on it. The moon has no protective atmosphere. For the next 14.75 days, this surface is in complete darkness, which makes it one of the coldest places in the Universe.
In this situation, the very compact nuclear reactor Kilopower, developed by NASA, will come in handy. It will be able to provide astronauts with the necessary supply of electricity for long nights lasting weeks, and will also be very useful in the development of other planets, for example, Mars.
“There is no place more severe and unforgiving of mistakes than the Moon. But since this is the closest celestial body to the Earth, we simply do not have a better place to learn life outside of it,”wrote Tangavelu.
NASA has been developing dust and sun protection space suits and rovers, but how far the agency has progressed in these developments is unknown. They were part of the "Constellation" program, which, we recall, was closed several years ago.
A generation of billionaire enthusiasts can solve all these problems
“We have a whole generation of daredevil billionaires. All the innovations that our industry has seen over the past 10 years would not have been possible if we had only NASA, Boeing and Lockheed. Why? Because there would be no motivation to reduce the cost of development and use of certain technologies, - said at a press conference this year, NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman.
Hoffman, of course, was primarily referring to the work done by Elon Musk and his SpaceX company, as well as Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin.
“Without a doubt, if we are going to move even further, especially when it comes to moving beyond the moon, then we will need new spacecraft and rockets. In terms of capabilities, we are now rather closer to the pre-automotive era,”said Hoffman.
Many astronauts would like to visit the moon. And this only plays into the hands of people like Jeff Bezos, who recently began to actively advertise in Washington his plan to build a first lunar base with the help of his company Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. In April of this year, he announced that his company "is going to take all heavy industry outside the Earth, leaving only light on it."
Musk has also long talked about how SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) will make flights to the moon regular and affordable for many. And according to the same "many", SpaceX will be able to reach the moon even before NASA and Blue Origin.
“My dream is that one day the Moon will become part of the economic sphere of the Earth, like geostationary and low Earth orbit now,” said Hoffman.
“The space of the geostationary orbit is part of our daily economy. One day, I think the moon will also become the same part. And for this it is worth working and making efforts."
Other astronauts also have no doubt that humanity will return to the moon and begin the exploration of Mars. It's just a matter of time.
“I think that eventually humans will return to the moon and then begin to conquer Mars. Most likely, this will not happen in my lifetime. But I hope these attempts will be successful,”said Arthur Lovell.
Nikolay Khizhnyak