@It'sa Mea... Mario
>"..and successfully return, then how come - dispite massive advances in computer tech, at least some advancement in space shuttle tech and nearly forty extra years worth of studing the moon - it is still gonna take another 12 years to plan the next trip?????"
Um, because that's how long it takes. All the Saturn Vs are used, scrapped, or retired, we don't have any serviceable Apollo modules left, so what do you want? A whole lot of stuff has to be built from scratch, that means meetings, reports, committees, designing, planning, building prototypes, testing, debugging, building more prototypes, testing, debugging them, building the actual kit, testing it, assembling it, giving it a final once over and only then finally launching it.
Come on then, you're clearly claiming that it's some kind of conspiracy, so you ought to know: how long /should/ it take? And why? Let's see *your* detailed project plan. Because if you can't show that it can be done much faster, bang goes even your slightest hint of circumstantial evidence for the suggestion that you were too cowardly to come right out with (because even you know it's stupid and you don't want to look stupid): you're saying the original moon landings must have been a hoax or we would be able to do it quicker than twelve years. That might seem obvious to you, but the rest of us would like to know how you think you can say that - why not thirteen years, or eleven years?
Oh, and what you mentioned about the shuttle? That's irrelevant rubbish. The shuttle's a low-earth orbiter, it's got bugger-all use in a moon-flight capacity, so why even bring it up except to distract from the emptiness of your argument? Nothing we've learned from building shuttles would get us to the moon any faster.
Oh, and what you mentioned about forty years more studying the moon? That's irrelevant rubbish too. How the hell can you claim that looking at it through telescopes should teach us how to build rockets and organise large-scale human manpower projects any better? That's ridiculous!