Return to the Moon

We have not been to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.  The reason the United States went to the Moon, originally, was not for science or exploration, but rather for political reasons.  The US wanted to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon.  On July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong made one small step for man and a giant leap for all mankind, a human being stood on another celestial body other than Earth for the first time in history.

Why haven't we been back?  One, it is extremely expensive to travel to the Moon.  Not only do we have to have enough fuel to get there, but we need enough to get back.  We'd also have to worry about keeping the astronauts safe while on the Moon.  Two, there really is no economic or political gain from going to the Moon.  At the moment, the only gains we would receive would be purely scientific.  There is no profit to travelling to the Moon, though sometime in the future, it may be profitable to mine the Moon.  Politically, it wouldn't make one country better than any other.  The only advantage would be if there was a multi-nation coalition to go the Moon and make it worthwhile for all humanity.  Lastly, we don't have the technology to go back to the Moon.  A whole class of new spacecraft would have to be designed, tested, and constructed for man to go to the Moon once again.

Why is this important?  There has been talk of a crewed mission to Mars, which is all well and good.  But to skip going back to the Moon first would be a huge mistake.  The Moon is much easier to get to from the Earth than Mars; it would only take a few days travel to get to the Moon, with a round trip only taking about a week.  To get to Mars, it would require at least 6 months of travel from Earth to Mars and almost two years for a round trip.  If humanity built a lunar base, it would be easier to use as a launching point for exploration of the rest of the Solar System.  It would require less energy to launch a ship from the Moon than the Earth because the Moon is much smaller and its gravity would not work as hard against launching a rocket or spacecraft.  Once we set up a permanent presence on the lunar surface, exploration of the Solar System should follow, with Mars being the most logical first step.

Another nice thing about using the Moon as a launching pad is that the materials needed to build rockets and habitats and create fuel for spacecraft are already on the Moon.  The challenge would be to harvest the material and convert it into useful products. That is obviously many years in the future, but we still need to return to the Moon before thinking about going to Mars.