“We have no idea yet,” Robert Lightfoot has said ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-there/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1cca42034417
For me, personally, I don't see much point of us going back to the Moon, except for feel good missions. Why is it that you find it to be a matter of such urgency ... and importance?
It's not so much that I find it urgent (though I do). I did the video because it's the 49th Anniversary of the landing, and it was a very big deal. I mean think about it: No human has ever set foot on anything other than the Earth and the Moon. All our SF to the contrary, all our CGI to the contrary, nothing but that has ever happened. People tend to assume that since they see it in film or TV, we've done it -- but we haven't. All our fanciful notions about space exploration are currently just that: fantasy. We need off this rock for a number of reasons. The Moon would make a good laboratory, to begin with. We now know that human beings can't adapt to the ISS' effective weightlessness. Astronauts who go on long missions know they'll come back as cripples for the rest of their lives. Human bone (among many other parts of the body) doesn't like weightlessness. At all. Before we send anyone to Mars, we need to know if the human body can deal with anything less than 1G for extended periods. While not ideal, the Moon's relative closeness gives us a laboratory. We can at least discover if the human body can survive 1/6G. We have no idea if we can construct habitats. We have no idea if we can survive in low gravity. We just have no idea about anything other than going to the ISS and several times to the Moon for a few days. To send anyone farther at this time is an absolute death sentence. The Moon also makes a good jumping-off point. After time (if it's possible), it's a hell of a lot easier to send manned missions to the rest of the Solar System from 1/6G. There are also defense issues involved (see Heinlein). It would be a very bad thing for, say, the Chinese to get a stranglehold on the Moon. However, probably the most important reasons for having Lunar missions and (if possible) bases is psychological. We need frontiers. We need places where misfits can go, attempt to survive, and often die in the attempt. If we don't, our misfits have no outlet. You start to see the sorts of psychotic behaviors that are present in mass shootings. Those are people who, 150 years ago, would have been settling the American West. They need an outlet or else they start shooting the place up. We also need places for the libertarians to go. Earth is ultimately going to wind up a cesspool of centralized government that chokes off all freedom. We need places for people like me, who can't stand being under the thumb of governments, to go (and maybe die). If we don't have frontiers, we die as a species by suicide. It's as simple as that. The Moon is the nearest frontier.
First, let me admit that I've posted my share of long posts. With that said, this is much to absorb in one sitting. I may not answer everything, but let's see, as I give it a preliminary go, here ... Yes, it's logical to use the Moon as an analogue for living and working on Mars, I agree with that. As far as your being free from the government, you're not going to find that when we finally colonise Mars, I'm afraid. Politicians, Taxes and all that good stuff are inescapable. You know that, already. Though I will categorically state that I did not vote the last election, as I wanted neither Trump or Clinton representing my interests on a national level. But elections are the best we can do. There's just nothing else around. OK, uhm ... as far as our need for frontiers goes, that's great and all, but living on Mars indefinitely may not be possible. Living in low gravity for a lifetime might affect our physical selves and our minds in ways we can't know, yet. They're working on the problem, right now. NASA did experiments with those twin astronauts, I'm sure you know about that. One earthbound, one in space for a year and compared the two. In any event, Earth may be our only permanent residence now and for all time. And there's not much more that an astronaut can do on another planet, or asteroid, that robots couldn't do much more efficiently and cheaper. Having said that, should Man return to the Moon, I will still follow their reports with interest.
WRStone, this is hot off the presses; thought you would like this: http://time.com/5342743/nasa-moon-mars/
Given the international trade war and the fact that Trump seems to believe that the US owns the ISS, I don't think many nations will be willing to help the US fund any further big space projects at the moment.
Perhaps, but according to History, the Apollo–Soyuz flight took place at a time when the former USSR and the US were openly aggressive and hostile towards eachother. I'm confident that such a precident could reapply, during these stressful times.
No-one's going to fling many billions of dollars at such a project only to have it snatched away from them.
The United States has been providing the bulk of the money to keep the ISS in business, so I can't fault Trump's position on ownership. And whilst we've been keeping it paid for, these other space agencies have been getting their National Pride stroked for a long time, now. So, let's not pretend that NASA, or the USA has been snatching anything from anybody, other than the American taxpayer. ESA and their ilk still make heavy use of the Hubble, as well, let's not forget.
"Their ilk?" ESA and JSA (and so on and so forth) have also contributed quite a bit to space science. No, they haven't launched a lot of people into orbit but, given the need and resources, they easily could. Yes, we SHOULD go back to the moon and setup a base there for research and possibly to mine resources that are available (tritium, and the like). We need to start taking those baby steps again, we've been ignoring Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's words: “Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.”
In fairness, Tsiolkovsky did not think people would leave earth until... 2017 Okay he was a bit off, but still a visionary. It really has been a long road but things are finally improving. The shuttles are museum pieces and have been for years, but at the end of this year the first tests will occur for not one, but two commercial space passenger ferries, the Boeing Starliner, and SpaceX Dragon 2. Orion is also nearly ready for flight, mostly waiting on the service module and the SLS rocket (though in a pinch it could fly, and already has, on Delta 4 Heavy). That's three separate crewed space vehicles in addition to Soyuz and Shenzou (the real one, not Burnham's old digs) Cargo: while the ATV will no longer have any further missions, HTV, Progress, Cygnus, Dragon are all flying and soon to be joined by DreamChaser. There's a convertible sports car on its way to the asteroid belt. There are real plans being made by someone who can pay for them for a Mars colony, and metal being bent to make it happen. The first commercially funded asteroid prospecting satellites have already been launched in this decade. More will come. LOP-G might really happen and give us an outpost to start exploring and settling the solar system. Skylon is still making progress too. Multiple new propulsion methods are being tested that will make accessing the outer solar system more accessible. VASIMR continues to make good progress, and there are other, more exotic propulsion developments. A giant lava-tube cavern large enough to park Philadelphia in has been found on the moon. We almost don't have an excuse NOT to settle the moon, and with Falcon Heavy plus the upcoming BFR and New Armstrong, it may be economical to do just that. Once you're on the moon, you can start building infrastructure, manufacturing aluminum, oxygen, heavy metals, helium-3. You might very well be able to buy your ticket for a small suborbital space journey starting next year. Even more cool, you'll have your choice of spacelines to fly on. I've been down sometimes about the pace of development, and all the setbacks, but honestly as someone that got to watch Columbia on the pad as a young boy for her first mission, and watch Challenger explode and her crew die on live tv a few years later (one of the astronauts had visited my school two years before), things are really starting to happen. Despite all the shit going on in the world, there's never been a better time to be optimistic. Oh, and this happened yesterday:
Off topic, but coming from a nation that has compulsory voting, I've never really understood this idea that people would just choose not to vote. Not a criticism in any way, but could you honestly not discern any significant difference between the two? You consider them both totally equal bad options? If not, given that you're going to get one anyway, why not vote for the least bad option? Surely one of them had at least one policy you preferred over the other?
Why would we want to go back to the moon? Terraforming? Why not Mars, which has more atmosphere and density than that barren rock. We've been there as a nation over the last few decades, what's left that is of immediate importance?
Can't the Russians or the Chinese go next? Why does the US have to do everything all the time? We're tired.
I want to know when the next hero prodigy will be coming around to solve the world's energy problems. Oh wait... he might actually be here.