Fifty years ago, Neil Armstrong,
Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins
were on their way home after the
July 20 moon landing on the Sea
of Tranquility (about where
the circle is on the picture,
taken with the SPU 25 inch
telescope). John Kennedy said
the U.S. would go to the moon
not because it was easy but
because it was hard. It definitely
was hard, but Kennedy’s challenge
inspired a brilliant effort to
design a spaceship that could
accomplish these missions of
exploration.
Will anyone go to the moon again?
That depends on economics.
Economics is the study of a society
making choices about how to allocate
resources, and it will be a tough
to decide about the future
of moon travel. Now that the
original exploratory missions have
been accomplished, there would have
to be other reasons to go there to
justify the expense. Or, perhaps
there will be ways to reduce the
cost. As amazing as the Apollo/Saturn
design was, it was clear that the
non-reusable nature of the ships
meant that they would not be a long-term
solution for space travel. The
Space Shuttle program achieved a
significant level of reusability,
and there were 133 successful
missions; however, it cost
more than expected and there were two
catastrophic failures.
Kennedy was right that going to
space was hard, making us realize
even more what a tremendous
accomplishment the Apollo missions
were.
……………..
–Douglas Downing
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