Quote Originally Posted by Wulf202 View Post
Why the hell we are wasting money and time on this again is beyond me.
Quote Originally Posted by Bailey Guns View Post
I'm all for it. The Apollo era was a time of greatness and achievement of this country. Bout damn time we got back to that.
Carl's response somewhat answers your question.

The technological achievements/breakthroughs achieved from the space program, and our moon landings in particular, transferred to other industries such as medical, automotive, military, computers, etc. Just being able to have a mobile phone or a home computer are due in large part to the technology developed for NASA.

It's been said that what we have lost the knowledge we used to originally make moon landings and to get ourselves back to the moon we have to re-learn what's required. In doing so, we can expect further technological leaps and bounds which we can expect to benefit other industries once again. While many may not care specifically about returning to the moon, we can all expect to benefit from what we learn through the process.

An added bonus is a result of excitement for this sort of achievement which initiates greatness from others. It gets people thinking of new and better ways to do things - even things far removed from the space industry. It can be an amazing motivational tool to spur bright minds into action.


Now, as far as establishing an outpost/space station on the moon, I don't see that happening within our life time. With the retirement of the shuttle program the only way we have of getting the required infrastructure to the moons surface is through "heavy" booster rockets which really don't carry enough cargo without having to launch hundreds or thousands of rockets. That takes lots of time and money. I just don't see it happening.