As you know - although some insist on doubting - the man first stepped on the moon on July 20, 1969, an event that was attended by millions of people around the world and was followed by six other missions that led humans. to "walk" on our satellite. The last of these was Apollo 17, which took place in December 1972, and since then no Terran has ever set foot there again.

And never came back (Milners Blog)

Man's trip to the moon rolled through the space race and was driven by tensions between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War. Incidentally, the trip was far from smooth as NASA staff had to develop endless technologies, deal with a host of uncertainties and overcome many of the accumulated failures over the years. However, in the end, the US managed to beat the Soviet Union when it came to planting the first flag on our satellite - but do you have any idea how much this joke cost?

Cu $ to a $ thronomic

According to Joan Faus of the El País news portal, efforts to send man to the moon began long before the historic day when Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the satellite in the late 1960s.

According to Faus, between 1959 and 1973, that is, until a little after the last manned mission to the moon, the US government invested $ 23.6 billion (about $ 77 billion) in the project to explore the satellite - not to mention all the expenses with the development and construction of the infrastructure necessary for the accomplishment of the missions!

Historical Moment (Amateur Photographer 1)

But this figure of $ 23.6 billion refers to the values ​​of 1973. Upgrading, today the amount would be equivalent to almost $ 131.8 billion - or just over $ 428 billion. Incidentally, at the time, the investment raised NASA's budget to $ 5.2 billion annually (up from $ 40.9 billion today), representing 5.3 percent of all government spending. from the USA.

And if NASA decided to resume moon exploration and launch a new mission by now, how much would it cost? In 2005, the space agency released an estimate of what the investment should be to send a manned spacecraft to the satellite and concluded that the contract would cost about $ 104 billion - an amount that, as Faus explained, should not be much different if the project was set in motion today.

Let's go there?

And why doesn't NASA send someone to the moon then? Simple: Because the space agency is in a completely different situation today. While in the 1960s she had access to an astronomical amount of public money over the years, the amount has been reduced and today amounts to (only) 0.45% of the entire US government budget.

You could roll a new trip, right? (Amateur Photographer 2)

The clippings are the result of a number of factors, such as the end of the space race and the lack of interest of rulers to invest in new space programs. Not to mention that a lot of people believe it would be much better if the money needed to get to the moon were invested right here on Earth - since not everyone is aware that many of the technologies developed because of space exploration end up being incorporated into our own. day by day, improving our lives.

According to Faus, the US Government has approved a slight increase in NASA's budget for 2019, but it seems that it will be difficult for the space agency to get very far with this extra money.