11–20 of 73 posts
These prizes really confuse me. Wouldn't it cost more than $20 million just to get something into LEO with existing technology? How can mounting a robotic lunar mission possibly be done for less than that?
Don't underestimate the PR value. Space Ship One cost $25M to win the $10M X-Prize, but having a big prize can capture the imagination of the media and by extension the public.
Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does.
And besides, once we learn how to build bases on the moon, which will take trial and error, it will make it a LOT easier to build one on Mars where mistakes are not recoverable. What are you gonna do on Mars when you find out you forgot the soldering iron? Die. Moon bases can be resupplied.
The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…
The scientific/engineering (and cultural/sociological) gains from a human return to the moon would be tiny compared to a Mars mission, and any funding (think tens of billions) allocated to such a mission will necessarily push a Mars mission back by a decade or more.
First, the science -- while the robotic mission to Mars have yielded many insights about the early history and present state of the planet, a human geologist could do more in a day or two than all of the rovers have done thus far. A small group of human scientists could completely rewrite the textbooks in a short stay on Mars. Can the same be said about a moon mission?
Second, living on the moon would be much more difficult (temperatures, micrometeorites, lack of ISRU, etc. etc.), and involve very different challenges than living on Mars. Most of what we learn on the moon will simply not translate to Mars--it will certainly not be a lot easier to live on Mars once a moon base is established, we would nearly be starting from scratch.
This is a perennial debate in the human spaceflight program, and I understand the desire to do something given decades of inaction. However, we must be honest about what we stand to lose if we shift our focus to a return to the moon. There is precious little gain from both a science and engineering perspective.
The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…
The moon is certainly more accessible, but the purpose of having a base there is more less clear from both a practical and a scientific perspective. The scientific/engineering (and cultural/sociological) gains from a human return to the moon would be tiny compared to a Mars mission, and any funding (think tens of billions) allocated to such a mission will necessarily push a Mars mission back by a decade or more. Firs…
The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The moon is certainly more accessible, but the purpose of having a base there is more less clear from both a practical and a scientific perspective. The scientific/engineering (and cultural/sociological) gains from a human return to the moon would be tiny compared to a Mars mission, and any funding (think tens of billions) allocated to such a mission will necessarily push a Mars mission back by a decade or more. Firs…
Good points on both sides of the debate. Why not do both? Imagine the "we" is really 7.4 billion people (~195 countries) so it would seem that surely we could support each others' efforts to reach both destinations. What an achievement for humanity that would be!
It's really a zero-sum game, unfortunately.
The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…
The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…
No, the moon doesn't make any sense. It's a big, dusty, radiation-blasted rock. Sure, we could build bases there, but why would we? That's the question Apollo managers could never answer and why the program was ultimately shut down.
TL;DR Version (From show notes): We have not explored much of the moon at all, we can extract fuel and manufacture things on the moon, we need to understand how humans function long term in low gravity (rather than freefall), and finally, there are some unique science opportunities on the moon.
These prizes really confuse me. Wouldn't it cost more than $20 million just to get something into LEO with existing technology? How can mounting a robotic lunar mission possibly be done for less than that?
The intention of the prize is not to cover the costs but to kickstart an ambitious private space movement. One needs to be very lean, inventive, and somewhat risk-taking under those conditions. It forces one to think of business models that make the whole thing independent from a possible prize money (and government funding, which under GLXP rules is limited to 10%).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good points on both sides of the debate. Why not do both? Imagine the "we" is really 7.4 billion people (~195 countries) so it would seem that surely we could support each others' efforts to reach both destinations. What an achievement for humanity that would be!
It's a nice sentiment, but if you pool all the money NASA devote to human spaceflight there's barely enough to maintain R&D for a Mars mission with landing in the next 15-20 years, any split in funding between Mars and a manned Moon program, you're seeing a Mars landing easily past 2050. It's really a zero-sum game, unfortunately.