Why is it so hard to send humans back to the moon?

[Unclear Engineer]

There are several U.S. companies that are likely to provide redundancy for SpaceX capabilities, particularly Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. I doubt that SLS can keep up, and don't think NASA even wants to keep up - that is why NASA is trying to get commercial companies to make the next space stations(s?) and provide launch services, lunar landing services, etc.

And, it looks like China is intending to provide complete redundancy, so far as the whole of humanity is concerned.

So, I am not worried that NASA is going to prevent space exploration or colonization. I am a little concerned that the FAA or the U.S. courts could slow down the U.S. efforts. China doesn't have that problem.

 

[bolide]

The only thing I've come across is a claim by geologists that only the human eye, on site, walking around looking at rocks can determine what to pick up. You can't just take a rock, it has to be the right one. This can be addressed easily with cameras, rovers, helicopters, etc, all run by AI and Earthbound scientists. We don't even use humans in warfare anymore. It's all drones from here on out.

FWIW, I was thinking more of human eyes looking through robotic lenses, rather than AI trying to decide what to pick up.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Thanks Motie - I think the machines do it better too. Go much further, places no human can go, carrying instruments as good as any astronaut could carry and operate. A human can only do it at all when encased in machines, which will have to be of far greater sophistication, capability and reliability than any rover ever built. A Mars or Lunar ATV capable of keeping crew alive for extended periods is no simple rover - and the payload it represents no small cost.

Vehicles are a minimum for astronauts to explore anywhere. Or do people really think walking around in spacesuits, maybe with a geologists rock pick is how to do it? And it is not like the moon or Mars are myterious lands we can't see, with no idea what is there - they've been mapped already, at least at coarse resolution, with a lot of information from it about what it is made of. Better ground sensing satellites in orbit with higher resolution will deliver more information with less payload and cost than any crewed missions and will inform remote operated sample collection and analysis that can go much further and longer than any astronaut.

I'm not even convinced any crews going to moon or Mars would actually be doing exploration per se - that will already have been done. Or better have been, as preliminary to any crewed missions or permanent bases.