Back to the Moon?

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."

Comments

Quit being Pussies, build a moonbase

[sam_handelman]

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.

Moon base may make more sense than the ISS

[ike42]

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.

Lack of communication in the space biz

[apsmith]

It always amazes me how limited the picture most people seem to have, even in the media, of the huge variety of space-related efforts that are going on. If it isn't on NASA's list (even if NASA people are involved in it) or occasionally on a European or Japanese list, it's as if it doesn't exist. Here's a short list of lunar missions and projects currently in development, private and public:

• SMART-1 from ESA (the only one this BBC article mentions)
• LUNAR-A from ISAS/NASDA (Japan).
• SELENE also from ISAS.
• TrailBlazer and Electra from TransOrbital Inc.
• Lunar Retriever from AppliedSpace Resources
• IceBreaker from Lunacorp
• Lunar Service from Celestis (you have to be dead...)
• Lunar Architecture is a subject of study for HJ Rombaut, including a recent Lunar Base design workshop
• Bill Mook's lunar tours
• The Artemis Project

Many of these have received approval - some of the commercial missions seem to have had a bit of trouble finding funding or overcoming regulations and have announced delays of a year or so, but then the government missions have been delayed too.

What's missing on this list? Where's NASA you say? Interestingly NASA has spent over 50 times as much on Mars missions as on missions to the Moon since Apollo 17 left in Dec 1972. But that may change now that the NRC has put a lunar return among the highest priority missions.

Want to be involved? Check out the National Space Society and the Moon Society and you may help make some of these things happen!