I’m kinda confused… I see the Space X test launch approaching and I’m just mind blown.
We went to the moon in 1969 ya? Why is it so difficult to re enact that? Why is SpaceX doing it and not NASA? I’ve seen/heard of a few unsuccessful test runs but I’m not super up to date with our space journeys. But don’t we have this technology/engineering capability?
I don’t mean to be arrogant but can someone explain it to me?
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It is not difficult in the sense that we lack the knowledge or technology. The problem, as is in many cases, is who wants to spend the money to do it? NASA is no longer funded as lavishly as they were during the race to the moon (in percentage terms in those days, about what the US government spends on the military today) As far as priorities go, going back to the moon was just not a priority with the money they were allocated.
Then, of course, is what is the point? There have been a number of unmanned moon landings since and robotics and automation have become much more sophisticated and humans are just as fragile. So it is cheaper, less risky and nearly as productive just to send unmanned robots for any moon related research.
The “major” ideas going forward could be (a) learn how to colonize space and (b) send humans to more distant planets and (c) potential commercialization of space (tourism, mining, energy, etc). To do any of these, requires major improvements and development of technology. No one is interested in doing stuff the way it was done 50 years ago because the goals might be very different.
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