From PCC(E): After watching the explosion of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket last week, a rocket that is designed to help create the first human colony on the Moon, I thought to myself, “What is all this mishigass? Why do we need a human colony on the Moon? What will it tell us that unmanned exploration using drones or robotic vehicles won’t?” I couldn’t think of any answers, but I beefed about this to my friend (and reader) Jim “Bat” Batterson, who used to work for NASA. I was surprised that he pretty much agreed with me, and wrote an email to that effect. I asked him if he could turn the email into a short post, and he gladly assented. So here’s Bat’s take on space missions (indented):
Before Trump’s election and, really, its Project 2025 budgetary guidance, NASA spent roughly equal amounts on “human spaceflight” (also called “human exploration”) and “science”. In the NASA budget, “science” is a category that includes basic/fundamental science —mostly via grants to universities and institutes in the sub-areas of planetary science, like heliophysics, astrophysics, and earth/atmospheric science. The areas within “science” are prioritized by “decadal” committees of experts who, every ten years, assess the possible knowledge that NASA could help create. These needs can be very expensive, requiring the engineering of entirely new spacecraft and instrumentation needing long timelines and large teams of unique technical expertise (think space telescopes, planetary landers, comet or asteroid fly-bys).
Human Exploration, on the other hand, deals with all endeavors in which humans go into space in rockets, capsules, and space stations. The Mars Rover, for example, counts as “Science” and not “Human Exploration” because humans aren’t involved.
Until this past year. Human Exploration and Science were each budgeted at about $8 billion yearly with an additional $3 billion in human spaceflight operations such as running the International Space Station.
Last year, the administration’s (i.e., the President’s) budget recommended cutting Science by about 50%(!), and raising Human Exploration by $1 billion. Congress rejected that and kept the budget as it was. The same attempt to cut the budget was made this year, and Congress again rejected it.
The lunar moon base or colony, as well as the Mars colonization form of mental masturbation, both fit under the exploration and human spaceflight operations budget. Space telescopes, robotic missions to the planets and asteroids, earth-observing satellites and the like are generally counted in the “Science” portion of NASA’s budget. Even if Congress again restores the full Science budget, the chaos and uncertainty brought on these multi-year efforts can easily erode NASA if talented engineers and scientists seek more stable work to support their families.
I fully agree that there is no “science” in human colonization of the Moon as opposed to using robotic rovers; and the addition of humans to the mix entails not only danger to human lives, but much extra expense. The significant science that comes out of human exploration of space is limited to understanding the complexities of humans living and working in space. The only justification I see for a lunar base is the same as that given for the “first man in space” competition with Russia in the 1960’s: the claim of “soft” military/international presence IF another country such as China plants their flag along with a human colony. Adjusted for inflation, the NASA budget of the early 1960’s was three times that of today’s budgets, reflecting the more serious devotion to putting humans on the Moon in the Sixties. You can see a good budget summary from planetary society at this link.
By the way, using Department-of-Defense comparisons, I like to think in terms of how many aircraft0-carrier-equivalents aspects of the NASA budget represent. A new aircraft carrier these days costs around $13 billion +/- out the door. So the cost of the of NASA Human Exploration program is on the order of a new aircraft carrier each year.
So, dear readers, both Bat and I agree that we’re wasting a lot of dough (our dough) trying to put human colonies on the Moon and on Mars. It is a performative gesture with no real scientific benefits, and only tiny and unforseeable military benefits. That money could well be used to alleviate human problems right here on Earth.
If you have any questions about this, put them in the comments and Bat will be glad to answer them.
Here from Wikipedia is a “NASA concept art of an envisioned lunar mining facility” and, below that, an “Inflatable module for lunar base”.
We should have a self sustaining colony on Mars so all our eggs are not in one basket. The argument “we could help more on Earth” is naïve. The problems that can be solved by money have been solved. The big problems are caused by bad government, and human greed for power and wealth.
Colonizing Mars will be easy compared to getting a colony in another solar system.
Thanks for calling my arguments “naive.” And you seem to think that colonizing Mars will fix some of our problems. It will be hideously expensive and provide no scientific benefits that a robot couldn’t provide.
“All our eggs are not in one basket”? Do you mean in case everyone on Earth is destroyed?
I find this comment naive. The expense to even try to send humans to Mars much less colonize it is over $1 trillion and not a contingency plan against a human extinction event but fantasy. Mars is ~150x the distance from Earth to the moon and the moon is 10x farther from Earth than geosynchronous orbit. If you’re paranoid about human extinction events then build space stations in orbit around the Earth where you’re close to home and where all the water is. Recall that space is very deletetious to human health so simulated gravity is probably required longer term and that possible construction project is limited by the rocket equation and human-to-space lift capacity.
Humans will NEVER leave our solar system and will go extinct here. Traveling at even a fraction of the speed of light would take 1,000s of years to get to Proxima Centauri and guess what? There’s nothing habitable there or probably within 100 light years of Earth either. So we must care for Earth and those upon it as space offers no viable solution to our dilemmas – we’re stuck here.
The claim that there is nothing habitable within 100 light years is not justified by the evidence so far. There are planets in the habitable zones of their stars within that distance from us, but their habitability is yet to be determined. Even if some are habitable, interstellar travel is not possible for humans in any case, and likely never will be given the laws of physics.
The bulk of NASA’s budget should go for space telescopes and robotic probes. Those approaches give the biggest payoffs for the least expense. DeGrasse Tyson recently argued on Real Time that robots are no substitute for humans in terms of what can be discovered on Mars, but IMO the risks and expense of sending humans there are just too high.
Put human consciousness into AI and viola!
Isn’t that what a lot of the tech billoinares’ goal is- maybe it’s an AI spandrel. Probably more difficult than light speed travel, but we can dream and make movies about it. One I watched recently was “Mountainhead” which really sucked.
Speaking of Tyson on Real Time, he was surprisingly optimistic about aliens which made me think he’s dishonest about the reality and pandering. Maybe he thinks the laws of physics are mutable?
The AI will then be able to play a viola? I don’t get it.
Glad I got stuck here! For a minute at least…
I have to reluctantly agree. Even though sending probes and robots is very exciting (and valuable science, of course), I have to admit that sending humans out is even more exciting, though generally less valuable for science. Artemis II had me riveted.
I have a question about long term colonizing on the Moon, and even short-term visitation on Mars. Isn’t it the case that either of these will cause significant health problems and likely early death because of radiation? Being out beyond our magnetic field is tolerable for a short visit to the Moon, those missions would be near suicide if done in the long term.
You really, really, need to read this book if you’re at all interested in the topic. Here is a link to my review. http://www.astro.multivax.de:8000/helbig/research/publications/info/a_city_on_mars.html
Read the book. Independently of that: Is it the best way to spend money for science? No. Is it worth it “because it’s there”? I think so. Consider the fact that Elon is doing it mostly with his own money. Don’t do it because the money is better spent here? “Holy false dichotomy Batman!” Could it ensure the long-term survival of humanity? Maybe.
Well, he certainly invested his own funds to start, but (i cannot find a primary reference for this number) his Nasa funding for FY25 has been pegged at $2.1B, bigger than any other Nasa prime contractor except for the FFRDC, Jet Propulsion Labs run by CalTech. Not a hit on Musk, but just a reminder that he did work hard to achieve his significant gov’t funding. For example he was funded way below Boeing who totally failed to successfully deliver on their contract.
The superb quote Phillip refers to – “Because it’s there” – is fascinating to read about.
George Mallory is on record saying it, but it is associated with Naomi Uemura as well – both fascinating subjects.
Perfectly captures the spirit of exploration! And over-commenting! (Couldn’t pass this one up).
Yes, but the first successful Everest expedition was not funded by taxpayers and did not cost billions of dollars.
They’d have to live underground with a few meters of earth (err, “moon” or “mars”) above them for shielding.
I think that my old Science Directorate friends called it “regolith”, Coel.
I was wondering about that. But that somewhat doubles the challenge since now you need to import and maintain machinery to move a lot of regolith AND you still need means to basically build a space station on site.
But the radiation problem does not go away for Mars, since there is the ~ year that it takes to get there. And anyone returning needs to expose themselves again.
They will just have to bring extra-strong sunblock with them!
Sounds like the radiation problem is something for evolution to solve. Just gotta get up there and start having millions of babies and let natural selection get us sorted out in a few million years. WE can do it! I joke, of course…but could be a story plot.
PCC(E) : “we’re wasting a lot of dough (our dough) trying to put human colonies on the Moon and on Mars.”
True.
(Using the Common Sense meaning of “our dough”, as in, money taken from United States’ citizens, businesses, etc. by the government.)
It’s a clear case of justification by intended result rather than demonstrated result.
I am a semi-regular reader of Science Magazine- good toilet fodder. I have seen many articles on unmanned probe results, and cannot remember a single Science paper derived from a manned mission. Pretty simple metric, but also pretty telling.
As for the arguements
“We should have a self sustaining colony on Mars so all our eggs are not in one basket. The argument “we could help more on Earth” is naïve. The problems that can be solved by money have been solved. The big problems are caused by bad government, and human greed for power and wealth”
any colony on mars will be far more fragile than the one already on Earth, and there is absolutely no reason to think that bad government, human greed, power and wealth will not corrupt another planed inhabited by the same species, managed and funded by the same overseers.
Said overseers sometimes being of, by, and for the same people that support (or at least condone) the overseers’ activities.
It’s definitely expensive, and the science we gain may be no greater than that we might gain robotically. All that is true. But I—for some primal reason that’s hard to explain—would love to see human beings set up a colony on the Moon and, especially, walk on Mars. I won’t be one of those pioneers, but someone probably will, and I can try to imagine the sensations he or she might experience as they step onto our most Earth-like planetary neighbor.
If we could get past the cost and risk, it’s that rush of exuberance that would be worth it, and the realization that we’ve achieved something close to impossible.
How many billions of taxpayer dollars is your “rush of exuberance” worth?
I’m not saying that it’s a practicable objective, but I think that we should continue having aspirational goals alongside our robotic and other efforts. At some point, such goals may become practicable, and we will be prepared to act on them.
I agree, Norman. I cannot understand why people aren’t more excited about the prospect of setting up colonies on the moon and Mars – it seems to me a most wonderful, inspiring adventure. I’m British so it won’t be my taxes that help fund this. But I’d gladly pay tax for it (and indeed for colonising the submarine world and Antarctica too).
Easy to be enthusiastic with tax money that other people have to pay and you never will.
If you were an American citizen being taxed on your present income, would your cheerful contribution be meaningful? How much skin would you have in the game, while also complaining that Social Security and Medicare were “underfunded”?
The venture will cost $100 billion, let’s guess, — 2% of FY 2025 federal tax revenue — but gosh darn it I pay $10,000 income tax a year and my share will be $200 so I’m all in! If I pay negative income tax and contribute nothing, even more exciting. Someone who pays $20 million in income tax — most tax revenue comes from people like that — and whose share would be $400,000 might have a different take on it.
In 2025 the USA budget was over seven trillion dollars. So seven billion dollars is only 0.1 percent of the budget. Going to Mars is a better use of money than flinging missiles. And finally, Elon Musk is spending his own money on this dream of Mars.
PS, As a Canadian I’m quite happy to have big brother USA protect the world so we can concentrate on making maple syrup, and robot arms.
Sorry, but as indicated in earlier comments, Musk is indeed getting federal money for the Mars project.
What an odd thing to say.
As if blowing a trillion dollars on a Mars mission — my wild guess of $100 billion would have to be every year for ten years — means America won’t have to fling missiles at an enemy who will take advantage of its weakened state of over-reach to threaten its global interests. You seem to expect the United States to go on defending the world — with missiles — and fly to Mars while you profit from selling them robot arms.
We gain members of the 250,000 mile-high club.
Just a quick note/clarification for me: i do not necessarily think the dosh better spent on human problems here on Earth, but do think it might be better spent in the NASA areas that were cut such as Science, STEM Ed (bringing 21century STEM needs and realities into curriculum via teacher training and student immersion), and Aeronautics (the first “A” of NASA). The current NASA budget is pretty opaque even to the veteran analysts from the Planetary Society and AAAS it seems. If the U.S. is serious about a lunar colony, it needs to show it with more than artists’ renditions and tying commercial development of space transportation in with such a difficult and complex task such as humans living on the moon.
Just to clarify: the comment about better spending the money here than on these endeavors was mine, not Bat’s.
As I read your post, I could not help but think of President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, where he warned of the growing influence of the “military-industrial complex.” His concern was not simply military spending, but the risk of national priorities being shaped by powerful institutions rather than the broader public good.
Today, a similar dynamic may be emerging in what could be called a “space-industrial complex.” The drive toward permanent settlements on the Moon and Mars is fueled not only by science, but increasingly by commercial interests, national prestige, billionaires, and the ambitions of a rapidly expanding industrial space sector.
Meanwhile, our understanding and stewardship of Earth remain unfinished. We continue to struggle with challenges involving weather remote sensing and prediction, climate monitoring, water resources, ecosystems, and natural hazards. Much of the environmental observing infrastructure that supports these efforts is aging, underfunded, or increasingly reliant on small commercial companies to fill gaps once supported through public investment.
The irony is striking. We discuss weather stations on Mars while portions of our Earth-observing infrastructure face uncertain futures. We envision lunar colonies while critical environmental monitoring systems here at home struggle for sustained support.
This is not an argument against exploration. Robotic missions, space telescopes, and Earth-observing satellites have transformed our understanding of both the universe and our own planet. Rather, it is an argument for balance.
The question is not whether we should explore the Moon or Mars. It is whether our fascination with distant worlds is causing us to neglect the one world we know can support human life.
NASA being a government agency, it’s work should not in any way be commercial. That’s for private industry, where investors and the market best allocate resources. So… what sorts of projects are not commercial? General science: astronomy, geology, etc. With numerous commercial players now developing human spaceflight, NASA should just get out of the way of them completely, and devote 100% to science. Just science: probes, aeronautic research, basic propulsion research, space telescopes, etc. None of that needs to be manned. NASA blazed a good trail, but a lot of potential science – dozens upon dozens of potential probe missions – is now being sacrificed to the manned program. NASA should get out of manned spaceflight altogether.
Question for the discussion leaders (distinct from my hot take at no. 3 – hope this is not over-commenting ) :
Would the moon offer any advantage in identification of smaller/ hard to identify meteors/asteroids entering the atmosphere in sunlight?…(or otherwise too)…
(Don’t ask me why I’m asking … but the sound “BOOM” has something to do with it 😬)
One advantage that Luna could offer is siting a radio telescope on the far side, where all the random radio noise generated by humanity on Earth would be blocked by Luna itself. Having humans physically there to respond to maintenance issues would be a good idea.
There is already a project to put a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. However, as soon as there is a human presence there, there will be Starlink satellites, which will destroy astronomy like they have on Earth. Rather ironic that a space buff such as Elon has done more to destroy astronomy (both radio and optical) than any other person.
I guess I will have to be that Debbie Downer guy, so here goes. We are currently living on a huge spherical spaceship that is perfectly evolved to support us, at a speed relative to the cosmic microwave background of 370 km/sec. The moon landings in the 1960s and 70s were expensive PR stunts. We will never terraform Mars or any moon in the solar system. A Mars colony will die off within a few decades from radiation poisoning and/or psychological dysfunction. I admire Elon for being an engineer at heart and for accomplishing amazing things, but the Mars project is a vanity project. One thing I’ve noticed about billionaires is that most of them cannot accept finitude. Let’s pay more attention to our amazing planet and learn how to be good stewards of our home.
Completely agree. There’s no oxygen or water on Mars or the moon. A few people, at great expense, could be sent there for a short time, but that’s it.
But I regularly see people saying that there could be large, self sustaining communities there. This is nuts! We haven’t even colonized Antarctica in large numbers.
Excellent point about Antarctica. We might want to learn to walk before we can run….
I’m going to dissent here Frau K., Jim, PCC(E) and Dr. Pemberton, et al.
Consider: I know nothing about space flight, physics, etc. My conclusion comes from venture capital/options risk.
I put it to you that we have no idea which crazy ideas will or won’t work. In VC fewer than 10% of ideas even pay for themselves, let alone pay off big time.
So many known unknowns and “unknown unknowns” in finance and space travel.
When the cost is (other people’s, private) money, I say although it PROBABLY won’t work out.. shooting for Mars is a good bet.
respectfully,
D.A.
NYC 🗽
There is a significant amount of water on Mars and quite a bit on the Moon as well. And of course if you have water you also have oxygen. Also, there is quite a bit of oxygen bound up in minerals on both the Moon and Mars.
The real bottleneck, as usual, is energy. You need a lot of energy to get oxygen out of rocks and to break water into O & H.
Where is the water on the moon? I knew there was a small amount on Mars.
Not a small amount on Mars. Well, compared to Earth it is, but current best estimates are that there is enough water on Mars to cover the entire planet in an ocean 35 to 100 meters deep. There are large amounts in polar caps, glaciers in a few areas and “vast” amounts underground.
Hints of water on the Moon were discovered as early as 1971, during Apollo 14. In 2009 NASA crashed a probe into a permanently dark lunar crater so they could observe the debris plume, which contained “significant” amounts of water ice.
There have been at least 2 or 3 lunar orbiting missions to map the extent of water on the Moon. From that data set it is currently estimated that there is about 600 billion kilograms of water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles.
NASA has also found that there is also water on the sunlit surface of the moon “bound to soil and glass beads.” It is estimated that there is about 355 ml of this water per meter^3 of regolith.
There is certainly significant energy from full-time unfiltered sunlight; and plausibly massive energy from Helium-3 fusion (also a candidate for rocket propulsion).
Yes. Though building large scale solar on the moon, or shipping it from Earth, would take time. Anybody serious about developing a large scale human presence on the Moon should probably plan on building a solar panel factory on the Moon that uses only lunar resources (ideally) as early as possible.
I think it is too soon to say how useful Helium-3 on the moon may, or may not, be. The engineering challenges for both the He3 reactor and extracting the He3 from lunar regolith are more formidable than those with solar. But if the technologies do work out as hoped it would have some significant advantages over solar.
The moon’s sunlight suffers the same low-angle sun early and late in the lunar day, all day long at high latitudes, and all through the dark lunar night as the earth’s does, just on a longer time scale of 29 days. To do anything useful with lunar solar, you would need to faff around with storage media, as on earth, or locate solar arrays at many places all around the moon’s tropical regions: it’s always noon somewhere. Even without interfering atmosphere, low angle sun is less efficient unless the array can turn to follow it perpendicularly.
It’s true the lunar daylight is full-time in the sense of never being blocked by clouds, which is probably what you meant,
“Why do we need a human colony on the Moon?” I would much rather see a colony under the sea, but Atlantis, Flipper, and exotic sea creatures always intrigued me, whereas Star Trek, The Jetsons, and extraterrestrials never did. I wouldn’t ask the taxpayers to fund either venture.
As a personal aspiration, I see colonizing the Moon as akin to climbing Everest, sailing the world solo, or reading through all of Proust. If Bezos wants to do it on his dime, have at it, brother. But I would rather he focus on getting all the Proust volumes to me without damage.
Oh, come on. Who could not be interested in being Captain Kirk, travelling through space, seducing (and/or being seduced by) every female alien in the galaxy and beyond?
I don’t buy the “Mars would be a backup to Earth, therefore we must colonize it” argument. We haven’t made a self-sufficient colony even in Antarctica. In contrast to Antarctica, Mars is way colder, lacks breathable air, has toxic soil & no potable water, is exposed to lethal radiation, and lacks food sources (Shackleton showed that you can survive on penguins & seals, at least for a while).
However, I think that we should visit. Human space exploration drives both the imagination and new advances in technology that can pay off in unanticipated ways. This was well-written in a letter from a Nasa administrator to an enquiring person. See: https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/
Remember the “New Frontier”? Different zeitgeist.
Bravo for a colony under the sea—and why is there so little lobbying for this obvious goal? For that matter, existing small colonies in Antarctica and in Ellesmere Island could surely be expanded. Someday, it may even be possible for human colonies to be established in Bakersfield, Wichita, Stevenage, or Edmonton.
I’ve visited the human colony in Edmonton, and it’s thriving, despite the winter weather.
I differ a bit on conclusions – would you have thought Magellan or Columbus’ trips were flights of fancy back then?
But always worth listening to Jim on these matter. I’m a mere layman loudmouth who hasn’t even seen the stars in years – so I must defer to the experts. Thanks.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
I like your approach to private money. Venture capitalists like a good story, and I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. It’s quite remarkable how many of those early voyages with royal patronage — the venture capitalists of the day — actually succeeded. Are the archives full of explorers who were sent off at great expense into the unknown and never returned? I don’t think so. Da Gama, Columbus, Cartier, Cabot, Hudson, Drake, La Verendrye, Cook, they might not all have made the king’s/queen’s money back but they survived at least their first voyages. If that’s survivorship bias, obviously possible, find me the records of the ones who took money from the royal accounts and disappeared. OK, Magellan might have bitten off more than he could chew but at least some of his crew made it home to tell the tale and inspire others. This suggests that Their Majesties were pretty good judges of financial risk. (I’m not talking about individual investors who lost their shirts on later commercial ships that sank with their cargo, just the pioneering ones.)
But it also means that the early voyages of exploration weren’t long shots on the same scale as going to Mars, even just to look around.
CC’s pitch to the Spanish crown was indeed a flight of fancy (and self-promotion). His conveniently-small calculation for the circumference of the earth was woefully off. Somehow he got around Eratosthenes’ well-known and respected calculation, based on actual data, which was much more accurate. CC just got very lucky that there was a surprise continent between Europe and Asia; otherwise he would have been just another blowhard loser.
Perhaps. But the Vikings knew there was land beyond the horizon. He was lucky, in the way that good leaders are lucky, it extended all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Sail west, any latitude. Can’t miss it.
They started a lot closer to N America.
After the fact, it was can’t-miss. Before the fact, he was lucky in the way multi-million dollar lottery winners are lucky. “Good leaders” can just as easily get themselves and their followers dead; Richard the Lionheart comes to mind — inspiring to his men, lousy strategist (AIUI; not my field).
Putting humans on Mars appears impossible with any presently foreseeable technology if it involved bringing them back alive. Aside from the difficulties, both physical, and phycological, it’s a useless publicity stunt, when the money would be better spent on robotic missions to the Jovian planets to look for life. Manned missions to Mars look like a stupid, and very expensive way to execute innocents.
While I support the idea of space exploration, and even the possible establishment of colonies on Mars (for things like research and exploitation of resources if feasible), I cannot understand why that would need the involvement of humans in those colonies. Given the expense and the advances in robotics, these projects are far better done remotely, at least for the foreseeable future.
As we approach late afternoon here on the U.S. East Coast, I have enjoyed reading the variety of opinions and learning of a couple of new, thoughtful references. Looking back on what it took psychologically to do Apollo successfully in the 1960’s, I do not think…no I know that neither the moon nor Mars can be accomplished under the current, very unserious white house leadership. Either mission requires sustained leadership, an understanding by all workers (govvies, contractors) that this is the number one, two, AND three priority of the Nation and if assigned or asked to serve you will do so. Numerous aeronautical engineers at Nasa were conscripted away from their budding careers to civil or mechanical or electrical engineering or the like because engineers were needed for a project…sometimes a project that ended up going nowhere at the end of the day. But beating the Russians to the moon was THE national mission and your personal career interests were irrelevant. Lots of the early workers were of the greatest generation, had lived through the Great Depression and WW2, and were really happy to have a meaningful job. Some of the scientists did complain that we were sacrificing important science for a stunt, but eventually the strong leadership that Kennedy had kicked off prevailed…also, because of the national priority, money was made available, procurement policies were put in place to enable comingling of civil service and private sector workers….all to accomplish the mission.
I have seen this committment over the past year with some of our military, serving long deployments with difficult to maintain equipment. We have seen it with the Israeli IDF particularly over the first year of the War. Can a U.S. civilian workforce do it? I think so but it will take a very serious and focussed leader.
🎯
Different times, different zeitgeist. O tempora, o mores!
Can anyone today seriously imagine that an elected leader — of, by, and for the people — would even remotely consider something like this speech to inspire the people?
Even reading it brings tears. Like Cicero, we can at least honour the memory of a more optimistic and heroic age.
Granted that human exploration is expensive and performative. The question is whether the performances will generate enough public enthusiasm to inspire Congress to boost funding for the science, or inspire people to make voluntary contributions to space exploration. Sending people into space generates lots of public excitement; sending sensors (of whatever type), not so much. Politicians, even those on budget committees, are sensitive to public excitement. You just don’t get the bang without the flash.
“No Buck Rogers, no bucks.”
I read a news article about the NASA Moon Base project, which said that drones were going to be used on the moon. That took me aback, because the moon has no atmosphere, right? I thought that the news article was mistaken. However, NASA had more to say about the drones.
I am still, though, having conceptual difficulties with this use of the word ‘drone’ if it does not have propellors.
Like “grasshoppers”, I believe that these drones are hoppers, their”flight” being simply ballistic…luckily, though having no atmosphere, the moon has very low gravity making big hops ( and long golf ball drives) feasible. If I remember correctly, Mars atmosphere is equivalent density on Earth at 100,000 ft or so.
Jim, I have always wanted to meet a NASA guy and ask what algorithm did you chaps use to demonstrate the astronomical basis for the missing day in The Book of Joshua 10:12-13?
In my lifelong (78 years) association with and 32 years actually employed at Nasa, I never heard of anything like that. Sorry…cannot help you.
Just to add a data point, back in 2019 the Chestnut Fdn had their annual meeting in Huntsville, because of the presence of Hudson-Alpha Institute (an exceptionally impressive, genomics-centered operation) with which they are collaborating. Usually, the speaker at these meetings is someone involved in some tangentially-related conservation effort, but because of Huntsville’s main feature, the director of the Space Center there was the speaker.
She talked about going to Mars. The only thing I recall was that she said that [I think it was either HG Wells or Jules Verne] had written long ago that it would take 90 preliminary supply flights before any effort at colonization could be made, and that that number was about what they had come up with.
So consider that, too. I get the impression that a lot of people envision getting shot up there and that as soon as they get settled they’ll go off to Starbucks for a latte.
In any event, if you find yourself near Huntsville, visit Hudson-Alpha.
I disagree. Aiming for human colonies on the Moon and Mars, and perhaps other places, is an important aim for the future, and, I think, will eventually happen. If we (theUS) don’t do it first, somebody else will—China, probably.
Why important? Obviously the Moon is the only feasible “colony” endeavor. OR if Mars were even slightly possible, we’d have to succeed on the moon first. But again, why important? Mineral extraction? Golf playground for billionaires? Penal colony?
I know my last questions were serious to joking, but I do wonder why a moon colony is somehow important enough to outweigh the costs.
Re a lunar penal colony, see Heinlein’s 1966 Hugo Award winning The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, featuring Mycroft the AI.
(Too bad he got so famous he then didn’t need to listen to his editors….)
I’ve read just that and Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. I found the former a good story, though someone marred by his exaggerated characters, and was suprised to read later that it was a “juvenile novel”. The latter is probably his best-known book. Very well written, but I kept waiting for the “big reveal”, which never happened. Clarke, but contrast, had characters who were too thinly drawn. I prefer Asimov of the big three. At least the early James P. Hogan stuff is OK.
We can, do and will, speculate what values going to the moon may have after science, so… The very long-term is humans in space and the effects. Usually, the cost goes down over time and who knows what technology, health, and as already shown other benefits are yet to be derived from the industry as a whole… new materials, medicines?
Some far-off distant relatives may be eternally grateful for the perseverance of NASA and the like for something we haven’t even thought of yet because it hasn’t revealed yet that it is a problem.
Take a big chunk of rock heading our way, I’m asking, would it be a better fit to attack it from a moon base? don’t know myself but seems legit as launching from the moon has it’s merits.
So NOT a military moon base but an earth protector base. Finally, we should send politicians for a stint so they can get a sense of where they live. That is to say, collectively all our arses are on the line and not just their party. Muttering under my breath, some will declare “god’s glorious work” we send them also so they can be closer to their maker.
I agree 100% with the original post. An absolute waste. Our money would be better spent hiring people to push boulders up and down a hill. I can usually understand both sides of a political argument, but not with this one.
I see two arguments against, here:
a. Too expensive
b. Risky to human lives
While those are important, of course, I don’t find them to be slam-dunks at all.
I suspect that the same arguments have been made about every human exploration project in history. I suspect that the same arguments are made in opposition to many other kinds of scientific endeavors.
Very confident statement. I think if the space race of the 1960s/70s taught us anything, it’s that we are pretty bad at predicting the outcomes of such efforts, and the practical and scientific results and spin-offs.
I think there’s a place for human exploration of space. I think citizens/taxpayers are more likely to be engaged with humans in space than with robots and other machinery. This could materially affect support for NASA and science generally. We are a restless, pioneering species.
I agree with all of your points.
I think it is inevitable that humans will eventually move off planet to do all of the things that humans do. The first step to that is making it easy and relatively inexpensive to get mass off of Earth and into orbit. That is starting to happen now. Next, industries of various kinds will grow in Earth orbit and probably out to nearby asteroids. And all of the things needed to support those industries will grow with it. It will take time.
Off-planet resources are abundant. When I was a teenager it was deemed ridiculous by most people, even relevant experts, to imagine it would ever make any economic sense to try and utilize off-planet resources. These days that has changed a bit, as more and more people, even some experts, imagine it could be. I think it will happen because when it comes down to it economics is about human behavior and there have always been some humans willing to take risks to do hard things that haven’t been done before, for a variety or reasons.
NASA is no longer necessary for this to happen. Its program to instigate the growth of civilian space launch companies has been successful, and it seems very likely that the ball will continue to roll by itself. No doubt NASA could be well utilized to help by doing research on key technologies, which they always have done.
Yes it is inevitable, if we survive long enough. Aye, there’s the rub.
Just an FYI on aircraft carriers. According to ChatGPT, the U.S. launches about 1 new aircraft carrier every five years or so. But on the other hand ChatGPT says that the fully loaded cost of a new carrier (with aircraft etc. as well as its share of it’s share of R & D) is probably twice the $13B carrier cost quoted.
There are a few places beyond Earth in our solar system where a full spacesuit would not be necessary, though of course an oxygen tank would be. Imagine a habitat suspended from balloons floating just above the clouds of Venus. Temperatures and pressures similar to Earth on a warm day – you could sunbathe on the observation deck enjoying the warm breeze. Plenty of water in those clouds. Another is Titan, with surface pressure similar to Earth in a nitrogen atmosphere, though ridiculously cold so you’d need to be completely covered in insulation. The surface is largely composed of water ice so plenty of water there too. However, having said all that, I’m pretty sure none of those scenarios will ever come to be.