If they had kept going after reaching the moon, i feel like by now, we would’ve developed the technology to establish a colony on the moon. So why stop?
In: Planetary Science
Russian oligarchs stole the American dream and built a super yacht out of it instead of an Enterprise
It was hugely expensive and the immediate gains were minimal especially for the military who had hoped that they would gain a new advantage.
They did not “stop after the space race”. In “near space”, the amount of satellites exploded and brought things like satellite TV and GPS. Within the solar system, probes are still being sent, Mars, Venus, comets.
Why didn’t they settle on the moon? It’s not really feasible from a cost/utility standpoint. It takes a huge amount of resources to get comparatively tiny amounts of matter into orbit, not to mention land on the moon, and even more to get back. On the other hand, the moon doesn’t really have anything to offer resource wise, as in not even close to self sustainable, not are there resources you can’t get on earth without the effort.
Probably the best use case for a moon station would be a space telescope, but the ones in earth orbit are doing fine without the additional effort to maintain them.
As with much exploration, the initial space race was dangerous, expensive and rather jury-rigged. If not for ideological reasons, there would be little chance that such an effort would have been funded the way it was. Of course, the first big “takeaway” from the space race was ballistic missile technology – so it clearly never stopped but was somewhat focused on military purposes. Then of course, there was espionage and telecommunications (both with military applications).
No one actually stopped – it is just that the manned space exploration focused on earth and near-earth science rather than “Hail Mary” projects with lots of risks and not so much returns. As technology and computing improved, it just became far simpler, cheaper and more reliable to do most of the stuff using machines and sensors which is where we are today.
Deeper space exploration outside the protection of earth’s magnetic field is just very very dangerous for human bodies. The moon is just at the borderline of this protection. The technology available in the 70s and 80s did not allow for this. It would be deeply unpopular to send people to their deaths given the expected risks.
After landing people on the moon 6 times, [astronauts were literally playing golf there](https://youtu.be/t_jYOubJmfM). We were limited by the technology of the time and there was no real economic nor scientific benefit to establishing a colony there.
We 100% have the technology now to establish a long term colony on the moon. The question is “Why would we?”
There is nothing there to do that will actively promote the current goals of the human race nor solve our current problems.
Politics became so divisive over time that people became less interested in space and/or beating the Russians that now Americans are hyper-focused on beating *the other side*. We’ve kinda been in a civil cold-war / political war since Kennedy. At no point in our history since the moon landings have our politics become *less* divisive.
Next – economics. A moon colony will not be self-sufficient yet. It will rely on shipments and $$$ from Earth. For us to do this, Earthlings must get some sort of benefit from the moon colony. The most likely scenario that a moon colony will play in the future will be a fuel depot / manufacturing center for mars-bound craft if that becomes an important goal to humanity. We probably should figure out how to house and feed our poor before and stop destroying the environment before that shift will begin to happen.
It took a thousand years after reaching before Europeans colonised the Americas. And that was somewhere with air, water, food, etc.
It’s been a moment or two in historical terms since humans reached the moon.
nobody stopped after the space race.
what we stopped doing after a while was going to the moon but the technology developed during the space race is what made satellite launches possible which brought us things like satellite internet and TV as well as GPS.
We have the technology to develop a colony on the moon. Certainly there’s a few novel practical engineering tasks but nothing about it requires any breakthroughs. We know how to build habitats in airless voids and the moon is basically that with a floor.
No the question you should be asking is why do it in the first place. You seem to be under the impression a moon colony is desirable.
Why do you think that?
A moon colony is of no benefit really and is colossally expensive. Like more expensive than all space travel, ever, put together. And it doesn’t do anything.
The end goal of the Space Race was to reach the Moon. While there were technological innovations, the purpose was politics and prestige.
Remember that this is the height of the Cold War. The USSR and USA weren’t directly fighting each other to assert dominance. They were both out to prove that their respective countries could achieve better industrial and technological feats. There was no better way to show off than to go to places no man has been before.
The USSR beat the Americans in sending the first unmanned satellite, the first animal, and the first human into orbit.
So America went for the Moon.
The thing is that there’s nothing really there to make it worthwhile. Once the prestige was over, and the US flexed their dominance by sending a few more missions there, there’s no real reason to go back. The cost is unsustainable with nothing to gain.
Even at the time there were plenty of people opposed to spending money on manned space activities thinking the money could be better spent improving the lives of poor people instead.
[https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4](https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4)
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