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Originally Posted by donniccolo
"to prove that we could" - so the usa was able to achieve manned moon landings (6) before russia, even though russia had beat the us in virtually every other part of the space race? and russia still never has gotten to the moon btw. and this seems ok/normal to you? also - why go 7 times if after the 1st mission would've determined what you are concluding? heck, at least the 2nd or 3rd would've---but 7?!?? and then to abruptly cancel the entire Apollo program with 3 missions still being planned? this seems normal to you?
We established a program to land on the moon to prove that we could. Given that it worked, we spent the incremental whatever it was to go a few more times, but eventually decided it wasn't worth it any more.
Now it would cost orders of magnitude more to go, in part because our attitudes about risking the lives of astronauts have changed so we'd insist on it being ridiculously over-engineered, and there's still not a lot we would want to do that can't be done about as well in a much easier way.
And I don't see any problem believing that we beat the Russians getting there. Their technology was on a par, perhaps overall superior in some ways, but not so superior that it is impossible to believe — and perhaps the biggest reason I believe it is that afaik they never, ever tried to debunk it. The USSR had an enormous interest in showing that we didn't get there, and there was never any serious suggestion to that effect. They had their program; they knew what was possible... and they believed it. I consider that strong evidence.
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also your logic is flawed considering the usa has had plans and canceled plans to return to the moon. if it were a complete, unnecessary waste why even plan to return?
Politics, I suspect. Don't know. I certainly have no difficulty imagining politicians proposing grand plans, and the bureaucrats and scientists who would benefit from implementing those plans going along with it. I also have no problem believing that the money wasn't there, given what I suspect was the missions' proponents failure to demonstrate much benefit that would come therefrom.
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your logic is also flawed when you use the money argument. the usa spends trillions more than it has anyway - to say that they don't have the money for anything is laughable. they have an endless bankroll brah.
I suspect, and rather hope, that you don't actually believe this.
I we have an endless bankroll I wonder why we are not spending more of it on things that would get incumbent politicians reelected, like free housing and health care for everyone. that's a ridiculous position of course, but so is yours. Marginal dollars matter; marginal hundreds of billions matter quite a bit.
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(also - in 2069 if man has never left low-earth orbit "again" will you still believe that they did in 1969?)
Yes.
If there is a great reason for doing it, and sufficient wealth that it would seem reasonable, and we don't, then perhaps I'll have my doubts, but there would have to be more evidence than just that.
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"from orbit?" please stop comparing 400 miles to 240,000 miles to 34,000,000 miles. these are not fair comparisons to make. if you truly believe they are, ship me $240k on stars and i'll ship you $400 back. after all, they are basically the same thing ;-)
Strangely enough, low gravity is pretty much the same 400 miles up, 240,000 miles up, and 34,000,000 miles up. So is freedom from atmospheric influence on instruments. (think Hubble telescope — would it really be so much better if it were on the moon?) There aren't any minerals to mine in orbit, but mining the moon is millennia from being economical.
For most realistic purposes, they are quite comparable.
You continue, also, to ignore the way the world of technology has changed since the sixties. Then, to go to the moon and expect to get anything back or even learn much about it pretty much required that we send humans. Now, computer technology has advanced sufficiently far (many billion-fold, I think) that it's perfectly reasonable to send unmanned probes to do many of our research and technological tasks. Not all, perhaps, but it changes the cost/benefit curve dramatically. Couple that with the cultural changes that have made even a single death a big deal, and what you get is the cessation of manned programs to the moon. If we decided we needed to go back, I suspect we would send robots, not people, so a failure to send people wouldn't imply anything about whether we'd done it in the past.