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It's largely a matter of incentive. In the sixties, the US had an incentive to prove that it had more advanced technology than the USSR. Once we proved we could
by LorenDB 3y ago
It's largely a matter of incentive. In the sixties, the US had an incentive to prove that it had more advanced technology than the USSR. Once we proved we could land on the moon, the novelty quickly wore off for the public, which influenced Congress's decision to cut funding for the Apollo program.
We also haven't returned to the moon yet because of cost, I would imagine.
- tintor 3y agoBut there is plenty of Helium 3 to mine on the Moon, to justify the cost.
- ceejayoz 3y agoAssuming we manage to build viable reactors to use it.
- pfdietz 3y agoHelion is the closest for that, but it would be easier for them to make their own 3He by DD fusion. It will be very hard to make 3He extraction on the moon energy positive, since it occurs at very low concentration in the regolith.
- rockemsockem 3y agoThe public was actually never in favor of the Apollo program except for when we actually landed on the moon. The government was just willing to ignore public sentiment for some reason. And I'm very glad they did.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> public was actually never in favor of the Apollo program except for when we actually landed on the moon Wow, I wasn't aware that the "only point at which the opinion surveys demonstrate that more than 50 percent of the public believed Apollo was worth its expense came in 1969 at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing" [1]. [1] https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/exploding-the-myth-of-popular-support-for-project-apollo/ https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/exploding-the-myth...
- GeorgeTirebiter 3y agoGil Scott-Heron had a very popular song in 1970 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4&list=RDgoh2x_G0ct4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4&list=RDgoh2x_G0c...
- Vecr 3y agoSomeone should see about making a few versions for various crew compositions/landing times for the Artemis program. So you'd have one ready to go pretty much whatever happens.
- ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y agoThis is one of the reasons I’m glad the US is a representative democracy and not a direct democracy.