Lunar Return

[PortalHunter]

CNN - Chinese photos show moon's surface in vivid detail

The Jade Rabbit is roving about, taking nice new photos. High-quality ones.

There seem to be many future plans for getting to Luna through the 2020s to the 2040s, sounding a lot like the Mars exploration projections as of right now. I've also been hearing about South Korea + NASA future Moon missions as well. Looking into how many space agencies plan on getting to the Moon and landing people on it is exciting. Looks like there's'll be a half-century gap of Lunar exploration centred on the early 2000s, followed by another resurgence in visible interests at around the time that people hope manned Mars missions will become a reality. The manned missions tend to get people's attention more, right?

I wonder what nation'll be the unlucky thirteenth person to tread on Luna's surface…

[Rynn]

We'll see. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if no one went back in my lifetime (and I hope to live at least another 40-50 years).

[Dalex]

We'll see. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if no one went back in my lifetime (and I hope to live at least another 40-50 years).

Yeah. I mean past 40 years proved that one needs to have as low expectations as possible. But it's infuriating as hell. We got the tech, the people, hell even reason but no will to go there.

[Rynn]

I'm not sure we have a reason to go there, beyond scientific discovery (which increasingly probes are getting better at, and are cheaper) there's no real return we can get from the moon. Don't get me wrong I'm not one of those people who has to see profit before he advocates something (not at all!) but manned moon missions are so expensive it's hard not to think "is it worth it?"

I can't really see us seriously going back unless the technology to do it a lot cheaper is developed. Which it very well could be (reusable rockets, automation in general etc) but I'm not counting on it.

[Cray]

I'm not sure we have a reason to go there, beyond scientific discovery (which increasingly probes are getting better at, and are cheaper) there's no real return we can get from the moon. Don't get me wrong I'm not one of those people who has to see profit before he advocates something (not at all!) but manned moon missions are so expensive it's hard not to think "is it worth it?"

The moon has a number of advantages over other near-future manned destinations.

1) It has mass, which is handy in many applications by itself: regolith radiation shielding, ballast for tether assists, etc. This trumps LEO and other cis-lunar orbital positions.

2) The mass can be turned into more useful stuff, like oxygen, aluminum, sulfur, and so on. With even simple tooling, this gives you fuel (sulfur-oxygen), structural material, etc.

3) Low gravity well. Luna is superior to Earth and Mars in this respect, if not Lagrange points.

4) Short travel times. Luna beats the pants off Mars in terms of travel time, which opens up all sorts of opportunities in emergencies (1 to 3 days is much better than 3 to 9 months), and simplifies spaceship design concerns.

If you want to establish infrastructure off planet and make a permanent colony, the moon is attractive. IMO, it's a better start than Mars. You won't make money at it, of course, but that goes for a lot of activities in space besides commsats and launching rockets.

[Rynn]

True but that just pushes the question one step back: why launch manned missions anywhere? Not really for scientific research, for a lot of things you'll get a better ROI elsewhere (and continually improving probe technology will cut into the manned advantages). Space colonisation is mostly ideological. Which I'm fine with, I just don't see enough people holding that ideology to pursue it at today's (and near future) costs.

[Dalex]

True but that just pushes the question one step back: why launch manned missions anywhere? Not really for scientific research, for a lot of things you'll get a better ROI elsewhere (and continually improving probe technology will cut into the manned advantages). Space colonisation is mostly ideological. Which I'm fine with, I just don't see enough people holding that ideology to pursue it at today's (and near future) costs.

Actually the reason is to have backup in case Earth gets hit by giant asteroid or our civilization collapses for one reason or other. I think that is best reason in the world.

[Rynn]

For the same amount that that would cost we could create much more sophisticated/numerous back ups on the planet. Under sea/ground cities for example, or even just better defences against things like asteroid impacts. The only slim advantage to nations in space is that they might not get drawn into a war that destroys every settlement on Earth, but that's clutching at straws a tad.

[iancampbell]

The south pole of the Moon has usable amounts of water in the bottom of deep craters, and water more or less equates to rocket fuel (or propellant, if humanity sees sense and starts using nuclear power for rocketry). It's ice, so it will have to be mined and mining by robots is notoriously ineffective. One would need there either humans or consciousness-grade AI; humans will probably be available for the job earlier.

Sure, some asteroids have volatiles too - but they are a lot further away.

Personally, I think the presence of deep craters at the Lunar south pole is evidence for intelligent design somewhere - not necessarily where creationists think it is. A propellant cache just where it will do the most good...

[stevebowers]

Remote-controlled mining and construction robots with a moderate amount of autonomy should be able to extract useful resources from the Moon, resources which could be utilised to make colony habitats at some later date. Why would we need to send people there at all, when robots could do most of the work? I think there would be a future for a human presence on the Moon, doing the things robots can't do, but by the time habitable colonies will be a reasonable option there could be human-level AI available as well. Seems likely to me this might be an incentive to put humans there- if we don't, we would effectively be abandoning the human space program and passing it over to the AIs.

We need to build an federation of Hu and AI in real life as soon as feasible, or we'll lose the opportunity to have bionts in space altogether.