We haven't given up on the Moon. Since Apollo XVII in 1972, there have been another eighteen missions by five separate national space agencies. None of them have been manned of course, but they have included orbiters, landers and sample-return missions. Probably the most notable of these is the latest LADEE launch, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (gotta love those tortured NASA acronyms!) - yes, there really is an atmosphere, it's just extremely rarified and properly called an exosphere. Not to mention another ten lunar missions under development and planned for between now and 2018, including one to plant two telescopes on the surface (one radio, one optical) and ultimately to mine the Moon for resources - plus eighteen more proposed missions, some by private companies, taking us into the 2020s. Even the Apollo programme is still going on; those lunar reflectors are monitored constantly.
Not quite as ignored as is popularly imagined, really.
Not quite as ignored as is popularly imagined, really.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
