spaceflight also went down. This loss of interest destabilized NASA somewhat, as
the agency had by this point dedicated years of work entirely to the lunar
landing.
The lunar program remained an immense and unfinished achievement. At the
dawn of the twenty-first century, NASA and space agencies worldwide had not yet
found a convincing reason to get a human back to the Moon. The strategic and
economic returns of such an undertaking are still not clear and the cost could easily go beyond $200 billion, which is the current estimate for a lunar mission.
It would take new geopolitical motivations to send another human to the Moon.
In recent years, the geo-economic confrontation between the US and China and
other such tensions seem to be reviving the agenda for a manned Moon mission,
as we will read in the second part of the book. And even if humanity steps on lunar
soil once again, it is very likely that robots will remain the preferred lunar explorers for the next several decades.
22 The Space Race: Moondust
the agency had by this point dedicated years of work entirely to the lunar
landing.
The lunar program remained an immense and unfinished achievement. At the
dawn of the twenty-first century, NASA and space agencies worldwide had not yet
found a convincing reason to get a human back to the Moon. The strategic and
economic returns of such an undertaking are still not clear and the cost could easily go beyond $200 billion, which is the current estimate for a lunar mission.
It would take new geopolitical motivations to send another human to the Moon.
In recent years, the geo-economic confrontation between the US and China and
other such tensions seem to be reviving the agenda for a manned Moon mission,
as we will read in the second part of the book. And even if humanity steps on lunar
soil once again, it is very likely that robots will remain the preferred lunar explorers for the next several decades.
22 The Space Race: Moondust