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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:17AM
from the build-a-space-elevator-on-the-moon dept.
from the build-a-space-elevator-on-the-moon dept.
NASA seems hell bent to go to Mars, but can't afford to on its own.
Its international partners have no stomach for that — they would would rather return to our moon and build a base there for further exploration.
Doesn't going back to the moon make more sense? Build a base on the moon, and use its low gravity and possible water at the poles as propellant for further space exploration?
Why not the moon first?
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/7/11868840/moon-return-journey-to-mars-nasa-congress-space-policy
Links:
From NASA itself, in 2008: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/series/moon/why_go_back.html
The all-knowing, ever-trustworthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon
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Should We Skip Mars for Now and Go to the Moon Again?
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(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday June 08 2016, @11:29AM
Betteridge says... YES!
Let's do a little pro & con sheet, shall we?
Luna Pros:
- We know we can get there and land there.
- We know where to find water & oxygen.
- Easier to map / explore landing sites by robot prior to manned mission.
- Lava tubes!
- We can get there relatively cheaply (compared to Mars)
- We can travel there in days / weeks rather than months / years.
- Plentiful solar energy.
- Close enough to Earth that emergency assistance / evacuation is within the realms of possibility.
- Smallish gravity well is easy to climb in / out of.
- Lessons learned here can be applied to Mars later.
Luna cons:
- Long day/ night cycle.
- Extremes of heat and cold outside.
- There's no kind of atmosphere.
- Low gravity compared to Earth may have adverse effects on humans, long term.
- It's not Mars.
- Abrasive regolith.
Mars Pros:
- More stable environment thanks to thin atmosphere.
- Carbon & oxygen readily available in atmosphere.
- More interesting science to do there. Fossils to look for.
- Probably a better range of local resources / elements to play with.
- It's Mars, baby!
- Lava tubes!
- Nice sunsets.
- Potential sponsorship from chocolate bar company
- Mars gravity probably better for humans than moon gravity.
Mars cons:
- Combination of high gravity and thin atmosphere makes soft landing... tricky.
- it's a long way away.
- No, seriously, a really long way.
- Not as well mapped or explored as the Moon. Not entirely sure where to find water.
- Deep gravity well makes leaving difficult.
- Pesky dust storms.
- Did I mention that it's a really long way away?
- This guy [dailymotion.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 08 2016, @11:51AM
My basic opinion on the matter: I don't care *that* much where we go, so long as sometime in my lifetime they make it past LEO. Seriously, guys, you went further in the 1960's, and while I appreciate that you're trying to figure out how to get to LEO cheaply and are able to do a great deal in the ISS, we should be thinking about how to get off this rock more permanently, before we might actually need to.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @12:57PM
One reason they might be dragging their heels on getting us off this rock is because the rich and powerful already have a way to get off this rock. No rush to get the plebs off it, too.
I think it says something about how the world works when we have 7 BILLION people and have to choose ONE destination.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:33PM
Well, it probably will never matter to most of the population on Earth regardless, except in a "Yay, humanity may survive this apocalypse after all" kind of way.
Consider, the current mortality rate on Earth is roughly 8 people per thousand per year - that translates to about 162,000 per day. The birth rate is even higher. Any sort of mass-exodus from Earth would have to be substantially faster than that just to gain ground against new births. That's a lot of rocket fuel.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 08 2016, @02:13PM
You forgot one. Mars has the better night life. Think about it - the God of War. He knows how to party! Luna? Phhhhhht - drudgery and boredom is all I see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:09PM
Thanks, your post brightened my day :)
Pffft, THAT guy
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:22PM
Good list, except for the shipping costs. For everything other than transporting people (where radiation exposure time is more critical) distances in space are more meaningfully measured by delta-V than distance. And in terms of delta-V, getting from Earth to orbit is about half the cost of getting anywhere in the solar system, from there Mars isn't necessarily *that* much more expensive than the Moon. Shipping colonists to Mars would be more expensive, but they'll likely be only a small fraction of the total payload.
As for soft landings on Mars - we're getting rapidly better. Proper sci-fi landable rockets appear to be just about worked out, and Martian weather is so radically much weaker than Earth's that, visibility aside, landing in the middle of a howling dust storm should be easier than landing on Earth in a light breeze. And really it's only that last little bit that has proved any sort of difficulty, considering that all the Mars probes already had to shed 99.9...% of their interplanetary velocity before impact to avoid vaporization. Plus, SpaceX has been successfully testing hypersonic retro-propulsion in Mars-comparable atmospheres with every landing attempt, which should simplify things considerably. The big question at this point would seem to be whether hypersonic parachutes can be made light and reliable enough to be more attractive for slowing from orbital speeds than hauling enough fuel to do the job.