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I think the reason the European Space Agency hasn't gone to the Moon before now is that they didn't have an endless supply of money to pour into something with dubious commercial application like that financial black hole called NASA has had in the past using the excuse that we have to get there before the Russians or Chinese.
Now that NASA has become an old bloated dinosaur, their funds have been severely restricted and they are pretty much dead in the water. Even the military gets more of it's space technology from commercial contractors than from NASA nowdays.
Sadly there are now probably more commercial satellite and spacecraft launched outside the US each year than within. Lack of a reliable launch vehicle forces US technolgy companies to get the Russians or Europeans or even China to launch "our" stuff and even then the Government tries to stop them with endless red tape and bs.
But anyway now that the possibilities for the commercialization of Space are really opening up, everyone wants a piece of the pie which is why the Europeans and everyone else are going for gusto in developing orbital craft capable of the Moon, Mars and beyond rather than just satellites and why all NASA funds should go instead to the most promising private companies so that the US doesn't get left any further behind in the dust.
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