When in September 1962, President Kennedy .....
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| Putting A Man On The Moon Was Costly |
...... committed the United States to sending a man to the moon before the end of the decade, he said:
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
He said the cost would be met "During the next five years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city."
However he might have been telling a few little white mistruths in that statement, because the Planetary Society have worked out the exact costs of sending 12 astronauts to the moon in the late 60's and early 1970's.
In today's money it would be $280bn plus, and adjusting it the equivalent against the USA's current GDP would make it approximately $645bn. So its perhaps no wonder the US Taxpayer got fed up funding the trips, with no obvious societal or commercial return. The $280bn alone, is more than the combined GDP of 78 per cent of the worlds nations today.
However despite Donald Trumps axing of a large portion of the NASA budget, and the near earth orbit rise of private enterprise space travel, political needs (namely the rise of China and its very ambitious space program), have driven the USA to once again indicate that it intends to put a man or woman on the Moon again soon, and then push on to Mars.
The development program to do this is its Artemis program. The upcoming Artemis II mission plans to send a crew of four astronauts on a ~10-day flight around the Moon, with a target launch of April 2026. Following this, Artemis III is intended to land astronauts on the lunar surface, with the first landing planned for mid-2027.
Money concerns always come second to political and national pride .....
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