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Moon Is Stepping Stone, Not Alternative to Mars, NASA Chief Says

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Moon Is Stepping Stone, Not Alternative to Mars, NASA Chief Says

#6
The moon has 1/6th of Earth's gravity and 0% of our atmospheric pressure.

Mars has 1/3rd of the gravity and 0.6% of the pressure.

Those 2 factors make them very similar to each other and the distance makes the moon the clear candidate for a first step.

Re: Moon Is Stepping Stone, Not Alternative to Mars, NASA Chief Says

#7

The moon has 1/6th of Earth's gravity and 0% of our atmospheric pressure. Mars has 1/3rd of the gravity and 0.6% of the pressure. Those 2 factors make them very similar to each other and the distance makes the moon the clear candidate for a first step.

It really doesn't though. Descent, entry and landing on the moon is completely different than Mars. You have you use entirely propulsive breaking to get rid of your orbital velocity. On Mars for very large payloads propulsive breaking is needed but aerobreaking is a huge part of it too.

The Moon is not practice for Mars. It's a waste of time for political posturing.

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