Keros said:Total Recall Mars? Please, stop talking.
Let me explain the estetics of going to the moon vs going to mars.
We haven't gone back to the moon because of the immense cost and little gain we would get from sending people there. We have rock samples from all over the surface, we have plenty of data on geography, ect. There's no reason to go there at this time, that's why we haven't in over 30 years. There's simply nothing to gain and nothing new to learn.
Mars? Did you just compare going to Mars to going to the moon? Need I point out that the moon covieniently orbits the Earth at about 384400km (239000miles) center to center. Mars however, doesn't. The Earth is around 150 million km (~93000000 miles) from the sun, Mars is somewhere in the land of 250 million km (155300000 miles). And now we have 100 million km to cover just in straight orbital seperation, then you have to consider that both are moving at different speeds, and can be on opposite sides of the sun at the same time. Thus, sending out a space craft will require launching on a trajectory to intercept mars, not just go to it. Meaning Earth will leave the astronaughts far behind in it's orbit. If something goes wrong help is a year away. It's likely help would find a tin can full of frozen bodies.
Sending people to mars is a whole new department of space travel. The moon is a few days in space, Mars is over a year in space, then however long on mars, and a year back. Assuming they manage to land in the martian atmosphere without burning up, then take off without something going wrong, then making it into space and on the right trejectory to get back. This is all assuming that they don't get obliterated by interstellar debris, die of radiation exposure due to damage to the ship caused by impacts from said debris, or a long list of a million things that could go wrong.
The moon is easy. The technology of the 1960's was more than enough to do the job. Mars is very very far beyond today's technology.
And now, cost. Sending a probe the size of a basketball to mars costs millions of dollars. Sending a rover to land on its surface costs billions. The apollo missions costed a lot of money, had the government continued to fund them, it would have been economical suicide with the cold war looming.
I don't think anyone is stupid enough to fake something of the magnitude of the moonlanding. If it had been discovered, the US would be discredited for the rest of time.
Kind of sounds like what people must have said about using ships to travel long a distance across an ocean back in the olden days. Good thing they werent cowards and did it back then.