...What were the reasons to go to Moon back then, years in a row? Why sudden disinterest for almost 50 years? Do we know everything about the Moon so our adventures on Moon are over? And how is it possible that back then NASA had money for developing technology resulting in 9 manned missions (6 landings included) and nowadays can't afford even one?...
The Apollo program wasn't a program designed to move forward in measured increments, making steady improvements. Instead, it was a high-pressure, high-stakes program, intended to get the job done as quickly as humanly possible. It was a dangerous program, in that it pushed technology to the limit and required that every part of the spacecraft work to near perfection.
Robert Frost: Instructor and Flight Controller at NASA:
External Quote:
The US didn't continue because the Nixon Administration redirected NASA's focus towards building the Space Shuttle, partly due to the public losing interest in the moon landings.
The Russians lost interest as soon as the US landed in 1969. They almost immediately redirected their focus towards the Soyuz and Salyut programs that eventually led to Mir.
No other country had BOTH the necessary technology and the financial resources to make the effort.
https://www.quora.com/Why-have-humans-never-been-back-to-the-Moon-after-1972
NASA's budget was at its peak in 1966 and significantly declined after that even after Apollo 11's landing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA_budget_linegraph_BH.PNG
Political will was lost, NASA's budget dropped from 4.4% federal budget to about 0.5%. The budget for all the Apollo mission accounted to $20.4 billion if we simply added yearly spending of its 15 year-lifespan (1959–1973), or $109 billion in today's money. Today NASA's budget is $19.5 billion, 0.47% federal budget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
Still NASA did this: Until 2011 I think from Space Shuttle
$209 Billion: The estimated total cost of
NASA's 30-year space shuttle program from development through its retirement.
229,132: The amount of cargo (in pounds) that NASA's shuttles have returned to Earth from space through 2010.
198,728.5: The number of man-hours NASA shuttles spent in space during their 30-year history. That's about 8,280 days of manned spaceflight, NASA officials said.
20,830: The number of orbits of Earth completed by NASA shuttles before the last
13-day mission of Atlantis during the STS-135 flight. Atlantis will add another 200 orbits to that tally.
1252(as of 2016 April): Satellites and other payloads, including components for the International Space Station,
deployed by NASA space shuttles.
135: Total number of NASA space shuttle missions that will have flown between 1981 and 2011. NASA added the prefix of "STS" (Space Transportation System) to each shuttle mission. Of the 135 missions, 133 flights went as planned, with two ending in disaster. [
Most Memorable Shuttle Missions]
52: The total number of satellites, space station components and other payloads returned from orbit on NASA shuttle missions.
37: The number of times a NASA shuttle has docked at the International Space Station during the outpost's lifetime.
9: The number of times a NASA shuttle docked at Russia's space station Mir between 1994 and 1998.
7: The total number of missions by shuttle astronauts to retrieve, repair and then redeploy a satellite in orbit.
5: NASA's final tally for the number of spaceworthy vehicles built for the space shuttle fleet. The shuttles that have launched into space are: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Challenger and Columbia were lost during spaceflight tragedies.
Another shuttle prototype, the Enterprise vehicle, only flew in
Earth's atmosphere and never launched into orbit.
3: The number of main landing sites for NASA space shuttles at the end of their missions. They are: the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (primary site), Edwards Air Force Base in California (backup), White Sands Space Harbor in White Sands, New Mexico (backup).
In addition to these three sites, NASA has a long list of airport runways that could be suitable for a shuttle landing in an emergency.
The statistics are at Wikipedia.
Watch this video by Vintage Space it explains why did the interest go down:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyPIRheeOig
