> but did we really go to the moon?

We left mirrors on the moon. You can aim lasers at it and detect the reflection back to Earth:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jun/21/mcdonald-...

There is other physical evidence that was left behind like a rover, flag, footprints, etc, that can be seen from moon-orbiting satellites.

So after the moon landings public interest started fading quickly for space programs. NASA didn't have enough funds to both continue Apollo programs and develop the Space Shuttle so they wound down Apollo early to best use the budget they had. When a large program like that ends production is shut down, people leave companies and the unique skill sets required to build those products disappears.

So yeah truly we just haven't had a compelling enough interest to devote the necessary funds to go back. Also the Moon doesn't offer super unique research opportunities.

Also there is some incredibly interesting reading on the Russian Moon program. Your belief that they didn't want to go says that largely the effort to cover up their failed moon program was mostly a success towards the average person. The Russian spent a ton of money on their N1 rocket which failed on launch 4 times and then was cancelled and they ordered everything be destroyed.

> It’s 55 years later, and Artemis 2 is just planned for next year to do a manned lunar orbit. And MAYBE a landing rig and walk for 2025. We’re using 2023 methods and engineering to develop suits that will work. We have vastly more computing and skills and materials. Our rockets are 50 years better.

I'll be the first to talk shit about the SLS, but we've spent about 1/5 as much money so far, inflation-adjusted, and public projects in general are way more expensive now. We're also way worse at building subway tunnels—slower and less efficient per dollar spent. Like, a lot worse. It's a pretty worrisome trend, but isn't confined to NASA.

[EDIT] My point is, our burn-rate in costs is far lower, and that money, even inflation-adjusted, doesn't go as far these days when we try to use it to build Real Things, so it's not that surprising it's taking longer, even with better tech. It also seems to have been mis-managed more than a little, to a degree that Apollo wasn't—but Apollo was far more high-profile, so was less likely to be allowed too much mis-management.

> …even implied it?

There were plenty of ways to ask “why haven’t we been back in 50 years” without dragging in conspiracies, or even “how do I refute the conspiracy theories” without saying “this one has a ton of logical sense backing it up”.

It didn’t sound like a good faith question, and it’s an extraordinarily tired argument, so you got downvoted.

Reasons we never went back:

1) It was principally a national pride competition between the US and USSR so when the US succeeded there wasn't much of a reason to go there. We gathered loads of rocks for all the science we could want to do for a long time (they're still cracking open fresh samples to this day).

2) There's not that much economically or scientifically on the moon to really investigate that needs people there we can get new data pretty simply through orbiters or rovers

3) NASA's budget is much smaller portion of the overall budget and it's no longer singularly dedicated to the Moon

4) Longer term stays are much more intensive on resources than the short sprint to the Moon and back done by Apollo. The main goal of the moon now is to use it as a stepping stone to test for a Mars mission.

We went the first time because politics at the time allowed it to have massive, massive funding. We're finally at a point where we can go without massive, massive political backing. I think it's as simple as that. I'm pretty sure NASA has always wanted to go back.

> We’re using 2023 methods and engineering to develop suits that will work. We have vastly more computing and skills and materials. Our rockets are 50 years better.

We're also using 2023 safety standards, budgets, and political will. It's not an engineering problem.

You have the why right there. The first time it was to show up the Soviets, but it was monstruously expensive and they couldn't compete, so there was no reason to keep doing it. And now it's less expensive and the Chinese are stronger and so on.

https://xkcd.com/1074/ provides a surprisingly robust explanation for how we know we actually went to the moon:

> If NASA were willing to fake great accomplishments, they'd have a second one by now.

More prosaically, the main reason that we went to the Moon in the first place was that it was a superpower dick-length contest, although the space technology also has sufficient other uses in things like intercontinental ballistic missiles and other military technology. Once someone landed on the moon, the contest was over, and the evaluation of the scientific or economic benefits of manned missions to the moon took over and... there isn't really that many, so interest in it waned very quickly, and resources were allocated to other (frankly, more useful) missions instead.

Interest has spiked again because it's essentially a new dick-length contest. Several powers that weren't superpowers 50 years ago are interested in doing it, in part, to prove their mettle as modern superpowers, and the US is interested in doing it again (in part) to one-up the wanna-be superpowers.

For the US in particular, manned spaceflight programs have had a fair amount of listlessness since the cancellation of Apollo. There's a tension between people who want to focus on LEO, those who want to move to the next great accomplishment (landing on Mars, which is probably somewhat beyond current capabilities, though how far beyond is debatable), and those who would rather have more robotic space exploration endeavors. And pretty much every administration comes in, declares a new vision for human spaceflight that scrubs the previous administration's proposals, and things move on because you can't get anywhere in 8 years.

Why did we pretend to go back in Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, 17. Why did we pretend to have a near catastrophic loss of Apollo 13. As far as conspiracy theories go, it sure is another one.

YES we (well some highly trained and lucky astronauts) went to the moon.

It's like your assuming all of the landers NASA and other countries have landed on Mars and Venus are fake too.

Yes. We did.

There's rocks on the moon. That's it.

We went collect moon rocks several times. We put a flag there, we put reflectors up there. The moon itself is rather boring.

Saying your question is "good faith" doesn't necessarily make it so. Same with implying you have a "steelman" argument. It's not. It's an idle thought.

The only reason to go back at this point is to conduct certain types of research. The moon doesn't have the same protections as Earth with regards to radiation. You can't just chuck some people and some plants on the surface and call it a day.

But it would be a good place to see what could withstand the radiation. Ways to mitigate that radiation. Ways to field test certain extraterrestrial bases with the least amount of risk possible. I mean, it's still 240k miles away, so if something goes really wrong, you're likely dead. But it's not like you're halfway to Mars and you realize you forgot to bring water.

My thinking is the scope of the mission has increased. They're going to try to play a game of tennis on the moon and need a more mobile spacesuit.