It’s been almost 45 years since humans walked on the moon.
The last manned mission to the Moon was Apollo 17 which landed on December 19, 1972. The Moon was the first and last extraterrestrial world to feel the step of a human foot. We haven’t gone back. We haven’t gone on.
The Space Race with the Soviet Union gave political impetus to catch up with their accomplishments. We didn’t want to fall behind the red threat. President Kennedy’s ambitious goal was deliberately made difficult enough to give our side a chance to come from behind and win.
After some initial setbacks, we did surge ahead and made it to the moon before our rivals. The Soviet response came too late and met with four failures of the N1 launch vehicle. By that point, the project was scrapped, since the political propaganda prize had already been seized by the Americans.
Once our flags had been planted on a few spots around the moon, the American people also seemed to lose interest and Congress slashed NASA’s budget.
Three Saturn V launch vehicles are on public display. One is nearby at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The others are at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, and the United States Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. These are actual Saturn V rockets that were meant to go to the moon, not be put on display.
The moon has been the target of regained interest lately. As recently as December of 2013, the Chinese demonstrated the ability to land a rover, Yutu (literally: “Jade Rabbit”), on the moon. It was the first soft landing on the Moon since 1976 and the first rover since the Soviet Lunokhod 2 in 1973.
All these accomplishments were initiated and funded by governments. Private companies would like to have access to the moon, but costs are still prohibitively high. Moon Express, headquartered in Cape Canaveral, has its sights on mining the moon for the element tritium. Tritium would be the perfect fuel for fusion reactors, and tritium from the solar wind is found in lunar soil. But how to get there?
The Google Lunar XPRIZE is an incentive for private companies and organizations to find a way to get to the Moon and perform some exploration — all the while transmitting their progress back to Earth in a high-definition video!
Five Google Lunar XPRIZE teams have launch contracts for 2017: SpaceIL (Israel), Moon Express (US), Synergy Moon (International), TeamIndus (India), and HAKUTO (Japan).
Will any of the teams succeed? The winner will receive a $20 million prize, and second place gets a $5 million prize. Much more is really at stake.
Learn more about prospects for lunar outposts at "Back to the Moon for Good," the featured show this month at Astronaut Memorial Planetarium.
The last manned mission to the Moon was Apollo 17 which landed on December 19, 1972. The Moon was the first and last extraterrestrial world to feel the step of a human foot. We haven’t gone back. We haven’t gone on.
The Space Race with the Soviet Union gave political impetus to catch up with their accomplishments. We didn’t want to fall behind the red threat. President Kennedy’s ambitious goal was deliberately made difficult enough to give our side a chance to come from behind and win.
After some initial setbacks, we did surge ahead and made it to the moon before our rivals. The Soviet response came too late and met with four failures of the N1 launch vehicle. By that point, the project was scrapped, since the political propaganda prize had already been seized by the Americans.
Once our flags had been planted on a few spots around the moon, the American people also seemed to lose interest and Congress slashed NASA’s budget.
Three Saturn V launch vehicles are on public display. One is nearby at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The others are at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, and the United States Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. These are actual Saturn V rockets that were meant to go to the moon, not be put on display.
The moon has been the target of regained interest lately. As recently as December of 2013, the Chinese demonstrated the ability to land a rover, Yutu (literally: “Jade Rabbit”), on the moon. It was the first soft landing on the Moon since 1976 and the first rover since the Soviet Lunokhod 2 in 1973.
All these accomplishments were initiated and funded by governments. Private companies would like to have access to the moon, but costs are still prohibitively high. Moon Express, headquartered in Cape Canaveral, has its sights on mining the moon for the element tritium. Tritium would be the perfect fuel for fusion reactors, and tritium from the solar wind is found in lunar soil. But how to get there?
The Google Lunar XPRIZE is an incentive for private companies and organizations to find a way to get to the Moon and perform some exploration — all the while transmitting their progress back to Earth in a high-definition video!
Five Google Lunar XPRIZE teams have launch contracts for 2017: SpaceIL (Israel), Moon Express (US), Synergy Moon (International), TeamIndus (India), and HAKUTO (Japan).
Will any of the teams succeed? The winner will receive a $20 million prize, and second place gets a $5 million prize. Much more is really at stake.
Learn more about prospects for lunar outposts at "Back to the Moon for Good," the featured show this month at Astronaut Memorial Planetarium.