Well - the scientists wanted to return to the Moon immediately. Apollo 17 was the very first mission to send a scientist to the Moon - a geologist. He is the only scientist ever to study the lunar surface in person. And in those days geologists on Earth couldn't get that good an idea from the grainy live video.
Carl Sagan once said it was like buying an expensive car, taking it out for a few short drives - and then keeping it in a garage for the rest of your life.
This shows that Apollo was not science lead. Also they kept all the missions very short, and studied only a small part of the surface around each landing site.
They had two aims basically
- Political aim - to get as many astronauts to the Moon as possible - and return them safely to Earth
- Scientific aim to learn as much as possible about the Moon
But those were to some extent incompatible. The political aim was best served by returning the astronauts to Earth immediately as soon as they set foot on the Moon - because every EVA was an extra risk that perhaps they might not make it back alive.
For the scientific aim they'd have loved to have someone up there for weeks or longer studying the Moon.
There is also the whole thing that each mission did run a risk that one or more of the astronauts wouldn't get back. So - at what point do you stop? Every time you do a new Apollo you add to the chances that you lose one or more of your astronauts.
Although the systems were much more reliable by Apollo 17, still it wasn't like driving to work or taking a airplane flight. These were risky missions and any mission could lead to an astronaut dying.
It's not actually true that we know a huge amount about the Moon. Much of it comes from the last mission because that was the only one with a geologist.
The other astronauts did have some geological field training - but were basically jet fighter pilots who were no more geologists than you or me. They did their best, but no substitute for a proper geologist.
So we have lots of rocks. But not so much by way of rocks carefully selected by a trained geologist. Those only come from the last Apollo 17 mission.
You can tell that from the last mission where Harrison Schmidt made many "on the spot" decisions based on what he found there.
The Moon did turn out to be totally dry - and lifeless - and - so since one of the things of most interest to us is search for life - that's probably main reason focus then turned so much on Mars.
But there is much of interest that we don't understand about the Moon. And - it's now believed it has substantial ice deposits at its poles. And lava caves.
At the time of Apollo nobody suspected the ice deposits which if they exist are in regions of perpetual darkness at the poles, and the caves had not been discovered either. First discovered in 2009 Found: first ‘skylight’ on the moon. There was only indirect evidence before that- the rilles with some of them collapsed, one of the Apollo missions landed next to a collapsed rille, but no way to prove that any of the uncollapsed rilles were hollow.
And - must have meteorites on it from Earth - e.g. that got sent there as a result of the KT boundary asteroid that helped make the dinosaurs extinct.
That's interesting - as it might also have life there - not modern life - but samples from Earth. Not too far fetched to suppose it might have fragments of ammonites for instance from that impact - which was into a shallow tropical sea. And many earlier impacts into Earth - even way back before our fossil record begins.
And - of course - not corrupted by Earth life - though - it would be by cosmic radiation - and the harsh conditions there - degenerated. Maybe best place to look for meteorites in the polar ice deposits?
You could look for them - perhaps deep enough underground to be protected from radiation - and in ice deposits so that they are not completely dried out either. Maybe small fragments first, who knows, they might be numerous in those conditions in the polar ice on Mars, just a thought...
For more about this idea see Moon rock may contain evidence of ancient life on Earth, experts say
Another reason to go back is to build radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon where they would be shielded from radio transmissions from EArth - those block off much of the radio sky from radio astronomy with only a few narrow bands they can use to observe the universe in radio waves.
So - there are lots of reasons to go back.
But we don't have the capability to send humans there now. And will be risky - do we want to take the risk that an astronaut would die going to the Moon? Would be more risky than the ISS for sure.
May be that we do robotic exploration of the Moon instead. Can also do telerobotic exploration from L1 or L2. And we can also do "artificial real time" exploration.
It's used in online multi-player computer games apparently - you use a simulation of the real environment which is updated frequently - but not in real time - and your actions are delayed very much like the time delay from Earth to the Moon - but is seamless because when you move, your actions instead modify the simulated environment - which to you seems real time - although your actions haven't yet happened in the on-line world.
~So - if that works for gaming - maybe it would work for lunar exploration also. E.g. as you move the rover - it moves over a simulated environment apparently in real time - though actual movements happen a couple of seconds later. If you combine that with a bit of autonomy such as collision avoidance etc - maybe that could make it easier to explore the Moon directly from the Earth.
Here is a video about the idea
See also, my Case For Moon - New Positive Future For Humans In Space - Open Ended With Planetary Protection At Its Heart as an article on my Science20 blog, also available online in book format and as a kindle booklet on Amazon.
Also, see the facebook group: Case for Moon - Open Ended with Planetary Protection at its Core
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