A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
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Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#2We/our government is completely unwilling to invest the multi-trillion dollar expense of creating a permanent moon colony. In light of that, I believe arguments to the effect of "a moon base would make Mars easier" are baseless since creating that type of installation on the moon would dwarf the cost of a single shot to Mars and back. In light of that, our current moon efforts are nothing but make-work doing things we've already done because Mars is actually hard.
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#3Put me in the No Way! column. NASA budget for exploration including SLS is about $3.5 billion. The Apollo mission cost $145 billion. Just not going to happen. Best guess: double budget to $7 billion and spend that much every year for 20 years and we will be back on the Moon.
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#4We/our government is completely unwilling to invest the multi-trillion dollar expense of creating a permanent moon colony. In light of that, I believe arguments to the effect of "a moon base would make Mars easier" are baseless since creating that type of installation on the moon would dwarf the cost of a single shot to Mars and back. In light of that, our current moon efforts are nothing but make-work doing things w…
Why would a permanent Moon base make Mars easier? Would the idea to build a space elevator or manufacture rockets and fuel there?
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#5I am extremely pessimistic that the 2024 launch will happen.
The linked article gets to most of the main reasons, but man, could you imagine the fallout of a Apollo 1 type incident leading to a loss of the Artemis crew?
NASA, as a govt agency, slingshots between "safety above all else" and "launch the bastard"
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#6We/our government is completely unwilling to invest the multi-trillion dollar expense of creating a permanent moon colony. In light of that, I believe arguments to the effect of "a moon base would make Mars easier" are baseless since creating that type of installation on the moon would dwarf the cost of a single shot to Mars and back. In light of that, our current moon efforts are nothing but make-work doing things w…
Why would a permanent Moon base make Mars easier? Would the idea to build a space elevator or manufacture rockets and fuel there?
AFAIK the main benefit would be lower gravity for launching rockets and easier access (again because of gravity) to mining resources in space. Broadly related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#7'"I am more interested in maximizing the odds of success for this bold undertaking and making it as safe as any human journey into the deep space can be, than I am in having NASA meet arbitrary deadlines," Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson — a Democrat from Texas and the chairwoman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology — said at a recent hearing.'
Waiting to make a journey until it is "as safe as can be" means that one never makes the journey at all. This has been NASA's curse since the Challenger explosion. Human space exploration is not going to happen with a "safety first" culture.
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#8Put me in the No Way! column. NASA budget for exploration including SLS is about $3.5 billion. The Apollo mission cost $145 billion. Just not going to happen. Best guess: double budget to $7 billion and spend that much every year for 20 years and we will be back on the Moon.
You mean the entire Apollo program cost $145 billion. This is one mission to the moon with much better technology and lower costs. You just can not compare costs like this.
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#9There's not much reason to settle the moon and mars prior to the remote establishment of an independent food supply. Aggressive remote terraforming through domes, mirrors, foreign microorganisms, explosives, and robots should come first. Establishing automated synthetic systems on these rocks to mimic what nature provides for free on Earth is the hard problem to be solving. Without such systems already place, wages will be extremely low and no one will want to live there.
Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen
#10Elon Musk will land on the moon before NASA does. You can carve that prediction in stone.