Mankind is Returning to the Moon!

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong announced: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” From that point until 1972, a new mission to put new men on the moon was announced almost every 5 months, but on December 19, 1972, the last manned moon mission, Apollo 17, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, calling an end to NASA’s Apollo program. No human has set foot on the moon since December 14, 1972. No lunar flyby has been performed since April 13, 1970. Only robotic pioneers have landed or orbited the moon since Apollo 17.  

Not everything about the American Aerospace Industry is NASA’s, because various other companies based in the U.S. have put manmade objects into space on their own such as: The U.S. Air Force, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX. The U.S. Air Force has even put a person out of Earth’s atmosphere before, on a rocket powered plane called the X-15.

It wasn’t for very long, though. But soon, some of those companies plan to put people in space, and beyond Low Earth Orbit. In 2018, SpaceX, most likely the most successful privately funded Aerospace Company, plans to send 2 NASA Astronauts around the Moon, and return safely.

The Falcon Heavy

You can’t get to the Moon and back without a rocket, especially without a big, huge, gigantic Big Bertha rocket! Take the Saturn V, the rocket that took Neil Armstrong and company to the moon and back. It stood at 363 feet tall, about as high as a 36 story building.  That’s taller than the Statue of Liberty! Saturn V is only capable of sending a crew of three to the moon, two of them would land, then they would all re-dock in a low lunar orbit, and come back to Earth all together.

SpaceX’s proposed Falcon Heavy rocket, scheduled to fly late this year, is good enough to send just two people around the Moon and back. They will not land or enter orbit, they will just fly by it. In late 2018, two citizens, yes, citizens, will do many months of training before embarking on a trip around the Moon.

But, Mommy! I want to go to the Moon!

Well, you can, if you save up about one million dollars by 2032! Then you can get a ticket to help some rag-tag space builders to build a Moon base! Sure, it might take a few years, but SpaceX and others do have a plan to set up a base on the moon in just a few years.

And in order to live on the Moon, you would be inducing less bone density and weaker muscle power on yourself. What? You still want to go to the Moon? Then just wait 15 years for a charter from the NASA official! And don’t you dare make a Declaration of Independence on the Moon! We have the ships with food, you don’t. So think twice about meeting with a Lunar Paul Revere that yells at the top of his lungs on his moon buggy: “THE EARTHLINGS ARE COMING, THE EARTHLINGS ARE COMING!”