Humans haven’t set foot on the Moon -- or any other world outside of our own, for that matter -- since Cernan and Schmitt departed the lunar surface on December 14, 1972.
It has been almost 40 years since humans stepped foot on the Moon - isn't it time we went back ?
During the Apollo Moon landings the eyes of the world were fixed on a space-faring future with lunar bases and trips to large rotating space stations like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. As successive Apollo missions were scrapped however this dream slowly faded, and over 40 years on we have still yet to return to the lunar surface aside from with a few unmanned robots.
While plans to return humans to the Moon have been announced at various points, the actuality of this promise has yet to come to pass. With the economic downturn making space exploration an ever-more expensive endeavor and with the promise of nuclear fusion and other technologies capable of making such flights cheaper and easier in the not-too-distant future, is there really any reason to reach for the Moon at the present time ?
Full Article Phys.org
