Ask HN: Why have we not stepped back on the moon again?

> if we went to the moon and found it valuable

The value of putting people on the moon was almost 100% nationalist, driven by the Cold War and subsequent Space Race.

> If we did not find anything valuable, then why are we going back to circle it and stuff?

The value of nationalist stunts has gone up again.

It's a reasonable conclusion that Earth has the most competitive market and cheapest prices in the solar system and that there is not anything which is worth taking back to Earth.

Artemis is not motivated by the profit motive but by scientific value, mogging other countries, and other non-material values. And yeah, it transfers money from the taxpayer to many private organizations that can in turn kick back some to politicians to keep the money going. Something like that.

The moon landing is a much more difficult mission than just circling around the moon and I'd argue that we don't have a realistic plan for the landing right now.

There is nothing valuable about going to the moon. The moon is barren and nothing of value there. It takes a long time to get there, with many things that can go wrong along the way. Landing on the moon is not easy, with an incredible amount of things that can go wrong during landing, and even more that can go wrong getting off the moon and making it back to earth. Reentry to Earth alone is incredibly dangerous.

Very expensive, lots of risk, very little return.

It doesn't mean we shouldn't do it for the science discoveries, but there is a lot of opposition for why we shouldn't be spending the money on moon missions. The unfortunate part is that it doesn't mean that money goes to better use if we don't spend it on moon projects.

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See the (relatively short ~3 minutes) discussion here[0].

That should remove your confusion.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4J9uvhJQM0

I dont get paid enough as a teacher...the moon should be the least of your concerns as an american. lets talk about the moon when we have money to pay teachers

Simple, politicians are short sighted and do what gets them the most votes. They’ll get more votes by virtue signaling about the poor, the environment, or whatever the hot topic of the day happens to be. And it’s incredibly easy to rationalize. Since government spending is boundless, especially in the modern monetary era, hard decisions aren’t necessary. So politicians latch onto the same types of arguments presented in this thread and focus on pandering for reelection. In reality, yes landing on the moon is dangerous. Contrary to the posts here, the moon is incredibly valuable and thus ultimately profitable which is why private companies will likely beat the US back to the surface. An argument can be made that no one other than Trump would have pushed this as hard AND how hard would he have pushed without China’s growing space program? As for things like teacher salaries? Yes, in some places, they are abysmal. OTH, overall US educational quality lags other countries significantly. Higher teacher salaries must come from reforms, which includes reducing the bureaucracy surrounding education substantially, starting at the federal level and working down to the local. I live in a major US city where the superintendent of schools makes roughly 10x the average teachers’ salary, despite presiding over a failed school system. That is unacceptable.