ENG: The Moon: Why haven't we gone back?
Hello everyone, David here! First of all, I would like to apologize for taking a rather long time to post here. I am officially in my senior year (exciting stuff!) and am dealing with a lot of extracurriculars. I am loving them all, but a lot of them involve teaching, which is a heck of a job considering the time needed to prepare classes. Gotta tell you, if there's one thing that I have learned while teaching is to respect teachers even more. They make it seem so natural, it's crazy.
Anyway, for today I have a post that I've had on my archives for a while now! I wanted to get it out of the way so I could start this year with some fresh posts. I am almost done with my Stars: Part 3 - which I have been working on on my side for quite a while now, lol - but I will hopefully post that soon enough. Anyway, here's the post, enjoy!
Today, we will talk about a moon, more specifically our moon, and even more specifically, The Moon.
The Moon has been around for quite a long time, as it is estimated it was formed around 4.5 billion years ago, and for all of mankind's history, we can look up to the night sky and see a big bright thing that orbits our home and will, probably, keep orbiting it for as long as we exist. However, besides it being beautiful and a true inspiration for many people, there is something particularly exciting about our satellite that should come to mind when we take a look at the giant rock: We have been there!
The picture you are looking at is the first-ever footstep humans have set on a different celestial body. Just think about it: a person, just like me and you, hopped on a spacecraft, left the boundaries of our own planet and actually visited, set foot, have been... to the moon. That by itself is crazy, but why exactly did we go there?
It was the 1960's, and the world was divided into two big "ideologies": communism and capitalism, in a war, not a bloody war, but a war of information and technology development, the Cold War. During such, the United States and the Soviet Union were competing to see who had the most advanced technology, more specifically spacial technology, and this competition received a special name due to the proportions it took (eventually leading to mankind setting foot on the moon): the Space Race. The USSR was ahead, having sent the first satellite, Sputnik 1 (despite not doing much - it just sent signals back to Earth) and put the first-ever human, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1. This was a tremendous show of power for the Soviet Union and the United States couldn't be behind, so in 1962, the then POTUS John F. Kennedy, in a speech that took place in Rice University, announced that the United States would go to the moon in a brand new space program (created a year earlier) led by NASA called the Apollo Program.
Unfortunately, the program started off on the wrong foot: on January 27th, during a sort of rehearsal for Apollo 1, minutes after closing the hatch, a spark started a fire that took big proportions, leading to the tragic death of astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. This incident has a lot more story to it, as the cabin was thought not to be safe by astronauts, even some reporting seeing wires and cables unplugged just lying around.
Despite the tremendous tragedy that took place, almost canceling the program, NASA got a green light to proceed with Apollo, but this time with a lot more security concerns, and so they did.
NASA worked hard to develop the Saturn V, a 3 stage rocket capable of taking 3 people to the moon and coming back safely, which proved successful on the Apollo 4 mission. After thorough development and research through various test flights, the first manned mission, Apollo 7, took place, and after only 3 more missions, Apollo 11 was ready to launch. It was what the whole effort led up to, the mission that was going to take men to the moon. And so it did.
On July 16th, 1969, off the coast of Florida, the Saturn V rocket carrying astronauts "Buzz" Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins launched. After a 4-day journey, on July 20th, the spacecraft successfully landed on the moon, and Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module, saying the very first words spoken on the surface of our moon as he climbed down the ladder: "It's one small step for men, but a giant leap for mankind".
They made their way back home safely, splashing on the ocean by July 24th, with a lot of stories to tell their grandchildren. After this mission, NASA sent another 12 people to the giant rock, only 10 of whom made it there, because, during the journey from Earth to the moon, an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft blew up, changing plans for the mission, which never made it to the surface of the moon (they did get really close though, as they came up with the solution of slingshooting the astronauts using the moon's gravity. Just imagine looking down at the moon, knowing how close you were to stepping there... must be awful).
After the program ended, people have long been waiting to get back there, as we did it once, we can do it again! But why, after more than 50 years, has mankind not returned to the moon?
Well, there are a lot of aspects to take into consideration, but I believe the main of which is the context the Apollo program was situated. Back during the Cold War, there was a common goal of beating the Soviet Union, technologically, that is, and Kennedy's idea of going to the moon and planting an American flag was just genius. Soviets watching Americans, their arch-enemies, setting foot on The Moon... think about it, THE MOON... was infuriating for them, to say the least.
Because the idea was so good, and the whole nation was putting effort into it, a change of administration wasn't a big threat to the program, therefore reducing the "political risk" of a sudden cancelation of the program, just as what happened to the "Constellation Program" in the 2000s.
Besides a low risk of "political risk" and the Space Race context, NASA had an enormously big budget back then compared to right now. From 1960 to 1973, their budget was approximately $263 billion if converted to current dollars, which corresponded to almost 5% of the total federal budget, compared to the approximate 0.5% that they are given nowadays.
Lastly, research on the moon was extensively conducted back then on the Apollo Missions and in some unmanned missions. We have definitely learned a lot from those, and continue to learn now, however, despite all of that, the sheer reality of it is that... let's be honest, there isn't a whole lot of thing on the moon. It's one giant rock that orbits our planet. Yes, research has been conducted, and yes we have acquired some crucial information about the formation of our own planet, however, this is already part of our knowledge, so technically, if new ground-breaking discoveries don't come up, the moon doesn't have much to offer. In other words, there wouldn't be a whole lot of reasons to go back there... until last year.
At the beginning of 2019, NASA announced its brand new program, called the Artemis Program. the agency had been developing the SLS (Space Launch System), a brand new aircraft that would surpass the famous Saturn V in propulsion power and would be used in extraterrestrial, deep-space missions, which came in clutch for Artemis.
The program has as final objective to plant an American flag on Mars, and it will make use of smaller-scaled lunar missions as a way to "rehearse" for the longer, more challenging months-long missions to the giant red planet (however, don't get it wrong, these lunar missions are an objective themselves). To make the missions easier, Artemis plans on building and establishing The Gateway, which will be a "mini ISS" that will orbit the Moon and serve as a hub for lunar missions, allowing multiple to occur at the same time. Read more about the Artemis Program here.
Another big thing about the Artemis program is that this time around, the first person to step on the moon will be a woman. That didn't happen during the Apollo program because there was one main source of astronauts NASA made use of: the military. As Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, stated during an interview on youtube channel Face the Nation: "In those [Apollo] days, all of our astronauts came from test pilots and fighter pilots and there were no opportunities for women. [...] Today, under the Artemis program, we have a very diverse, highly qualified astronaut core that includes women. Artemis, in Greek mythology, happens to be the twin sister of Apollo, so now when we go back to the moon, [...], we go with all of America, and I think that’s a great message".
This time, we are going to stay, and as a teenager living the "Artemis generation", I must admit, folks, we live exciting times to be alive!
Welp, that's it for this post! I'm glad to be back. I was really excited to share this post with you guys and let's dive in 2021 with full force! (Although a bit late, I must admit). Thank you all and see you in the next post, bye bye!
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