NASA's scientific mission isn't particularly strongly served by having humans in a place. Not that there's no scientific value it's just much more expensive than robots and much riskier.
And our ability to accept risk has decreased dramatically. 50 years ago the Boeing capsule would have been given the go ahead to detach without a second thought for instance.
Basically going from 2 9s to 11 9s (or whatever NASA targets internally these days) is comically expensive.
And I'd have to see a paper justifying human presence (besides trying to future proof society) as actually bringing more scientific value than robotic experiments.
The thing with probes is that you should send more than one every 5-10 years, if you do that, you'll learn something from the failures before everyone working on the project dies of old age. It's the moon, you don't need to wait for a once-a-decade transfer window to line up.
>All the software in the world isn't as good as a trained pilot in a novel scenario
You can likely launch 5 (or more) autonomous missions rather than send humans. And that's assuming good spending, if you go by the $93 billion Artemis Program, likely 20 or more.
Yes, recall that Apollo 1 incinerated the capsule crew, that would have canceled the entire program today, back then it was "press on..."
We did continue with the Space Shuttle after its accidents, but that was decades ago now, and I'm sure that played into any discussions there might have been about extending the program.
The US government just delayed the next Starship launch by 2 months because of incorrectly filed paperwork.
It's not that SpaceX didn't file the paperwork... they just used the wrong form.
This is why our feet are firmly nailed to the ground.
If anyone actually cared to go to the Moon or Mars, then obstructionist bureaucrats like that wouldn't be in their jobs for very long.
If you look at the first flight test of Starliner, everyone talks about the timing problem that caused them to fail to achieve the proper orbit. What is more rarely discussed is that after this happened, they did a top to bottom code review while the Starliner was in orbit, and found a bug in the crew/service module undocking procedure that would have caused the service module to strike the crew module after undocking, most likely damage the heat shield, and cause the capsule to burn up on reentry. They applied a hot fix in orbit for this.
Had the timer problem not happened, the code review wouldn't have happened and this wouldn't have been caught.
With the number of gremlins that have come up on every Starliner flight, there are certainly many more lower probability defects that will eventually lead to a loss of crew.
My general feeling is that the true reason NASA/Boeing is much less successful than in the 60s is because the NASA of that time attracted the very top talent that was young, energetic, and bright. These days that talent generally doesn't go to those places. IMO the main reason SpaceX has been so successful is that a lot of those people really wanted to work on rockets but didn't want to work for NASA/Boeing.
>My general feeling is that the true reason NASA/Boeing is much less successful than in the 60s is because the NASA of that time attracted the very top talent that was young, energetic, and bright.
Are they much less successful? Less things are being paid for and things are happening at a slower pace because money.
After a decade or two, and the loss of any real competition, the US lost the political will to keep pushing boundaries. The primary reason we don't still have the immediate capability to put people onto the moon isn't technical, it's political. We are only now reigniting that desire, and again, it's because of another great power starting to push things in space.
It was CCCP pushing us then, it's the CCP now.
We're still doing science on the planet Earth, because there's still plenty to learn, and we actually live here with billions of people.
We've only sent a handful of folks to the Moon so far. We've literally barely scratched the surface, and only a few tiny patches of it as that.
Exploring new places has always lead to all sorts of interesting new discoveries. No reason to think a whole new world mightn't hold a few interesting (and/or potentially lucrative) surprises.
Sure: if we had the ability to actually send a proper mission that can drive around the entire thing, with a pop up lab (arctic research style) on the moon itself, that's a different matter, but we are nowhere near that level of proficient at space science yet, and going to the moon a few more times won't make a difference to that aspect.
There's a number of reservations wrt the practicality of SpaceX Starship of course. That said, it allows us to say there's at least one company projecting a 100 metric ton payload spacecraft in the near future (with prototypes already being tested).
If/when they get it working, remember that SpaceX tends to mass produce their spacecraft, so it wouldn't be just a one off single landing by a one off single lander.
So quick computation: 5 trips is 2 and a half years, and then shipping supplies and then people another year or so. At 100-150 tons per year you can supply (back of envelope[1]) 10-20 'overwinterers'[2] with a fairly comfortable margin for a year, as well as equipment and parts.
There's also no technical reason not to reserve a landing pad for an escape craft that you can rotate every 6-12 months.
So it seems like the technical capability will be there at least. Then it becomes the question of whether that's financially viable already.
Can you elucidate further logistical challenges?
(ps. this post will likely date quickly, since NASA seems to be planning an actual Artemis Base Camp [3])
[1] Back of envelope suggests something like 3 tons of essential supplies needed per person, assuming the modest oxygen and water recycling as available on ISS, and use of nuclear power.
[2] By analogy with the arctic base: 10-20 permanent crew for year-round maintenance, with occasional surges 'on season', bringing their own supplies and equipment.
[3] https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasas-artemis-base-camp...
We built the first railways on earth 200 years ago. We could build railways on the moon this century. Think about this. The time between the beginning of industrialization and a space civilization could be just 300 years.
Your grand kids would experience the space age, but only if you start working on it today.
Just wait til China announces an effort to put humans on Mars.