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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: 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.