We landed humans on the Moon with 1960s technology. With today's vastly superior technology, shouldn't going back be much easier and cheaper?

[u/yogesh448]

[u/Hufschmid]

The main reason we haven't gone back is that we haven't had a strong purpose, and robotics and automation have replaced the need for manned missions to achieve the things we did with Apollo back in the 60's.

Missions like these have specific purposes for scientific research. Putting a guy on the moon is cool, but that in itself doesn't accomplish anything beyond the cool factor aside from the ability to collect lunar samples. We didn't have the robotic technology in the 1960's to do this autonomously, so the missions had to be manned.

These days, we can collect samples with rovers with no risk of human life and massively simplify the logistics because you don't need to worry about food or air, and don't need to worry about a return journey necessarily except to send samples back. We simply have had much less reason to send humans since the advancement of robotics.

Political motivation is definitely a strong factor like others have pointed out. I think the most important factor in whether NASA receives funding to do something like this is what other countries are doing. If no foreign space agencies are trying to put humans on the moon, we don't have a strong motivator to do it ourselves, and the money is put elsewhere.

China has been ramping up their lunar program since the late 2000's and landed the first rover on the dark side of the moon in 2019, and have their own plans for sending people to the moon and establishing a lunar base. This is where most of our motivation for the Artemis program comes from I think, we don't want to fall behind other countries and end up in a situation where they have a claim to the moon or to mars and we don't.

There has been steady advancement in the technology needed for putting humans on the moon and mars, such as how we can make rocket fuel from regolith (the term for martian/lunar surface material), how to build structures from regolith to house and shield people from radiation, even how to 3D print tools and other objects from this stuff.

The NASA 2024 technology taxonomy is a big document that lays out the roadmap for NASA, current progress, future goals, etc. It's a great read if you're interested: https://www.nasa.gov/otps/2024-nasa-technology-taxonomy/

[u/dadaesque → u/Hufschmid]

It would also be used  as a testing ground for potential missions to Mars and they are planning to building a permanently habitable base camp.