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Back to the Moon?

Posted by michael on from the nasa-will-probably-fake-this-one-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This BBC story discusses the prospects of probes returning to the moon. The article first mentions the ESA's SMART-1 probe, which will overfly the Apollo landing sites during 2003, and then talks with US scientists about why NASA should send probes back."

2 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Quit being Pussies, build a moonbase by sam_handelman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Mining the moon for use on Earth is never going to be a winning proposition. Re-entry into earth's atmosphere is just too expensive.

    However, we should to move our space fabrication facilities to the moon. That's the way to lower our launch costs, in the long run. It is a lower G environment, it provides an additional slingshot for launches into the rest of the solar system, and, given a sufficient initial capital investment, energy on the moon will be cheaper than energy on the surface of the earth.

    Before that's practical, we need a thorough, ground based, resource survey of the whole sattelite. In order to do that, we need a permanent base with facilities to fuel, service and repair all of the robots doing the lunar surveys.

    We have the technology. We should stop dinking around, pony up the cash, and do it.

    --
    The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
  2. Moon base may make more sense than the ISS by ike42 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The jury may still be out on the International Space Station (ISS), but the primary problem with all zero-g environments its that they really screws up human physiology. On the moon you don't have this problem, making long term habitation a much better prospect.

    NASA does not like to publicize the extent to which even short space flights negatively effect an astronaut's health. We evolved in gravity and our bodies depend on it to function properly ... and no amount of research is likely to change this fact. However, low gravity environments (like the moon) are thought to be ok.

    The moon is not that hard to get to, and once there its much easier to get into a zero-g environment, if thats what you want (for research, manufacturing, etc). If the goal is to have long term habitiation off Earth, then going back to the moon is a very good idea.