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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:17AM   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday June 09 2016, @03:31AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 09 2016, @03:31AM (#357156) Journal

    There is no possible scenario where humans will live anywhere else even in our solar system.

    Science fiction throws those out all the time. Your scenario of the impossibility of permanent human habitation of space is just as much a fiction. Given that humanity has a habit of doing impossible things (which turn out to not actually be impossible), I really don't see the point of your argument.

    Space is utterly inhospitable and we are absolutely suited to this niche.

    We already live in space. The engineering problem here is not to figure out how to survive in space, but figure out how to build enough of the environment of Earth to turn the "utterly inhospitable" into hospitable.

    A power plant on the moon? How about putting a power plant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? That would be easier, and just as useful. I.e. absolutely useless.

    Unless, of course, you need it to power something on the Moon or at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, then it becomes useful. It's worth noting that we've already powered things on the Moon and at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. They were useful when we did that too.

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