What’s In It for Humanity?

We’re getting a lot of commentary these days about future missions to the Moon. Some people want us to go back there, others want to go straight to Mars or an asteroid, or some other place (like a lunar space station). It’s all do-able since we were able to send people once. We should be able to do it again. The big questions are: when we will do it? And who’s “we”? And what will we do first? That’s all TBD, and of course, politics and funding will play a role in the answers.

As part of an exhibition project, a group of us were discussing the future of solar system exploration. One scenario we talked about was using the Moon as a research base and training ground for missions to other places. The rationale is that the Moon is close enough that if something goes wrong while people are living and working there that a rescue could be attempted from Earth. Of course, missions to the Moon aren’t so habitual yet that just mounting up a quickie hop to save some lunar colonists isn’t going to be easy. At least, not yet. But, exploration of the Moon does offer some attractive advantages.

The Lunar Advantage

As a research base, the Moon has a lot going for it. It is also a fine jumping-off spot to mount expeditions to other places. And, a place to train for living in low-gravity environments, along with whatever orbital assets the world has in place (such as ISS or a lunar gateway module). Granted, the Moon’s a bit more environmentally extreme than Mars, for example, but it’s still a good next step toward learning to live and work on other worlds.

Mars Bound?

Another idea was to just go to Earth orbit, build some ships, and leave for Mars. As a quickie approach, it has a lot of attractiveness. BUT, how do you get the pieces and parts up to orbit for the ship to be built? Out of Earth’s gravity well? Isn’t that going to be costly? Yes, of course, we did that for ISS, but that was then. This is the future. Costs are still costs and it’s not cheap to heave stuff up from Earth, much less heave astronauts/space construction crews to put it all together. That’s true no matter which scenario that ends up happening. But, heading to Mars is going to be a lot more complex than we expect, and probably pose many more hazards to the people who make the trip.

Living and working on another world is where a lunar base comes in handy, as well as an asteroid mining expedition. Theoretically, you could mine the stuff of ships from those two places, create your ships in lunar orbit, and then head out to Mars (or wherever) from there. That isn’t what the “Get Your Butt to Mars” folks want to hear, but it may be more feasible in the long run.

What Will It Be?

From the vantage point of today, I am not so sure what scenario will happen. I know what we liked for our exhibit plan. However, reality has a different way of unfolding than a relatively simple exhibit. In the meantime, in reality, we have China doing its thing on the Moon, we have NASA planning all kinds of things for the Moon and then Mars, and there are people in Luxembourg and elsewhere who want to go straight to asteroid mining (and not necessarily to get materials to build spaceships).

It’s a much more complex future for the Moon and Mars than we can imagine right now. And, that’s not all bad. Eventually, people will get to the Moon, set up research stations, colonies, etc. And, they’ll get to Mars, for the same reasons. The human exploration of the solar system will happen. Like anything else, though, it’s not going to go according to plan. It’ll be interesting, surprising, and probably incredibly difficult!