Almost fifty-one years ago, two Americans landed on the moon and stepped on its surface. The news spread around the world causing a great euphoria of the population, after all, a great historical landmark, where humans stepped on another celestial body for the first time in history, was being concreted there.
After the historic mission in 1969, there were others soon after. About five expeditions arrived on the Moon until December 1972, until astronaut Eugene Cernan completed human landings on the lunar surface. No other human has returned to the natural satellite in those 48 years. But why?
The main reason is linked to costs. Sending a ship to Lua is extremely expensive, not to mention the dangers there. Also, NASA's current rockets and space shuttles are not capable of overcoming Earth's low orbit to reach the Moon with the amount of equipment needed for a manned expedition.
"The amount of energy needed to accelerate this type of charge from Earth is gone," said Jeff Hanley, manager of NASA's former Constellation program. “Since that time, this nation has withdrawn that capacity,” he concluded.
Astronomy professor MIchael Rich, from the University of California at Los Angeles, told the BBC that "sending a manned spacecraft to the moon was extremely expensive, and there really is no truly scientific explanation to support it." As the United States had already "conquered" the Moon, the interest in returning there was lost, and then he added that "there was no scientific or political justification for going there again".
Taking into account that we already have a lot of data to study the Moon in several aspects, returning there would be a waste of money and resources. Such a mission requires careful meticulous preparation, and going there is not so easy.
During the missions we have had in history, rock samples were collected, equipment was left on the surface and we even have robots there. So it is not necessary, at least for now, to go on our natural satellite. But that does not mean that NASA and other space agencies have no real plans to return there someday.
In December 2017, current U.S. President Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, which mandated NASA to return humans to the moon instead of continuing the previous administration's Journey to Mars project.