Originally posted by Speed_NYC@Apr 9 2003, 04:44 AM
I too have seen and heard the arguments. I believe we went when all said and done. However, of all the arguments for/against, the inability of man (in 60's built spacecraft) to travel through/return and survive the Van Allen Radiation belt was most interesting! If we did go...why the F__k have'nt we been back. Space station or moon base? I know what I'd choose.
We haven't been back because Nasa has always been plagued with budget cuts and second guessing. Even recently, Bush cut the Nasa budget by millions of dollars. One expedition to the moon is hugely more expensive than several trips into the orbit of Earth in the Space Shuttle.
Don't worry though, because Nasa is ramping up to land a manned space craft on MARS because we just can't get sufficient data to analyze with robots as to whether there was life on Mars at any point. According to all I have read recently, there is new and plausible evidence that there was at least Microbe forms of life that was on Mars. We do know for sure that there WAS water at one point. This definitely points to the possibility that more evolved life could also have existed, but robots can't get to the proper locations to get real evidence, because we need material from rock and crater, not loose soil. This, if all goes well, is planned within the next 20 years!
Cool, huh?