POLL: Where Should Humans Land on the Moon Next?

[MarkStanaway]

We have only explored a very small fraction of the nearside of the moon. Project Apollo was just hitting its prime when it was truncated in mid stride by political forces. It is only logical carry on where Apollo left off. The moon is only a three day trip away and expeditions there are the obvious place to learn and gain experience before we move deeper into the solar system. Personally I thought the craters Tycho or Copernicus would be worth considering as an initial destination for the next phase of manned lunar exploration.
Mark

 

[zwheel]

I think lack of life is a plus for choosing The Moon over Mars. It would be very exciting to discover life on Mars but if it happens then any plans for human use of that planet are probably over. I don't think it would take long at all before a treaty was signed stating that nobody ever go back and the only exploration be done using robots with even stricter sterilization procedures then now. I think sample return missions, even robotic ones would be out of the question too.

As for the whole "are we alone" question, microbes on Mars would be interesting but I don't think discovering them would really say that much. Most likely they are distant relatives to life on Earth anyway, transported back and forth in meteors.

We can use the moon with no worries of harming any native life. Nobody is going to worry about pathogens in mined materials from there either.

 

[spaceaish]

Hi,

I'm Aishwarya. Before concluding the site for landing, it is primarily important for us to make a lucid decision about our Objective. But, In general, I have two suggestions.

• Volcanic areas : This will help us delve into the theory of volatiles like water.

• Polar Ice caps : Usually temperature of a planet is altered by the changes in polar ice caps. So, this would be a potential landing site. This would also ratify the current detection of water on Lunar surface. If we can find the surface temperature and emissivity in Polar ice caps, this would enable us to conclude the ambience in which Liquid water can exist in a stable form.

• Seasonal changes and organic life (If any), could also be traced , if we can land near polar ice caps and bring home a few samples.

So, I would stand for the Polar Ice caps.

Cheers,
Aishwarya.

 

[vaxheadroom]

The other option that is missing is the Lunar highlands where the iron - and more importantly - the PLATINUM is. This is the business case for the moon and we need boots on the ground to really determine the mine-ability of the sites and the density of platinum materials.
Anybody who hasn't (and has any interest in this at all) should read "Moon Rush" by Dennis Wingo available at www.apogeebooks.com

 

[srmarti]

Who makes up these choices? None of the above.

How about we haven't done anything like this since the 1970s and we need to revive the engineering skills and procedures for manned flight beyond LEO? There's science and engineering development that can be done on the Moon to then enable us to go to other places.

 

[lasertekk]

Why at the buried obelisk of course. Sheesh, didn't any of you ever watch 2001?

 

[CSStein]

We're talking about where the Chinese should land right? Because Obama terminated whatever plans the US had....

 

[Gravity_Ray]

We're talking about where the Chinese should land right? Because Obama terminated whatever plans the US had....

^^^^--- Extremely confused

 

[lensman01]

All those calling for Mars before the moon should remember that Apollo was 40 years ago. A huge national pride effort did not lead to permanent bases. The political will died along with the dream, the same thing will happen with Mars exploration unless a firm business base can be built up, we'll go a few times and the dream will die.

Get the business model for extra terrestrial expeditions, much the same way that the 'new' world was explored, and the political will will follow.

If we do the moon mining thing first then a precedent will be set and it will be easier to move on to Mars, do Mars first and business men will just see billions of dollars being wasted on a stunt with no tangible benefit.

Poles for me, with space 1999 eagles to do the bulk of exploration.

 

[Amadamerican]

Until we know all the facts there is to know between the Moon and the Earth, I do not think we should go back there to build, or manufacturing purposes because we don’t want to do something stupid that could affect its relationships with Earth, which would be very hard to fix because we do not yet have that kind of technology. What I think we should do is further learned its relationship with mother Earth and find out what's really possible. However, I think that we need to go to Mars and find a way to reignite its core engine, and make it habitable to expend our species. Remember, we are not going to do it because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

 

[postman1]

We need to go to the poles, and sooner rather than later. We need to build as large a colony as Luna can support. Hawking is right, if we stay on earth, we are sitting ducks.
From the moon, we can move on to Mars and start terra-forming. The surface area is greater on Mars than the dry, usable land area of Earth. It can potentially support a population of billions. Any subsurface microbes would likely not even see a difference, or, if they did, it would likely benefit them.
The largest problem facing rapid expansion into space is likely funding. A possible solution could be the large group of billionaires recently volunteering to pay more taxes. If they could be convinced to donate to a fund, managed by themselves, which would be used only for advancing civilization out into the solar system, There would be plenty of funds. There is also a lot of potential for return on their investments. Mining and space manufacturing, plus untold numbers of spin-off industries, the list goes on and on. Probably more return than we can imagine, and all while saving mankind.
Why haven't we already started?

 

[postman1]

Amadamerican- Dr Michio Kaku, mkaku.org, says that we can move comets into low decending orbit of Mars. They will melt, adding water and mass and warming the planet. I don't know if he has any thoughts on reigniting the core. I did see one idea to combine the martian moons with several asteroids in a mars synchronous orbit, which might warm the core by tidal friction.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Be very skeptical when reading Dr Kaku...he's becoming more a shill for pseudoscience than a true scientist any more. Very sad, IMHO.

 

[M0nd0Sinistr0]

Absolutely, the poles. (And pick one for now, don't spread between the two.) Because the Moon has so little tilt in its axis, it's easy to get sunlight when you want it (put up a pole), and darkness when you don't (either starlight, or absolutely darkness, whichever you want). That makes the poles just about a unique place in the Solar System. And from certain locations around there, you can set up huge radio telescopes with no earthly interference picked up, and optical interferometers with very little seismic activity to mess up things. Build plants to provide water, fuel, oxygen, and energy. Then use as a base to go out from there.

 

[artfulgang]

Ask China.... they will be picking the spot.
:|

 

[crazyeddie]

Amadamerican- Dr Michio Kaku, mkaku.org, says that we can move comets into low decending orbit of Mars. They will melt, adding water and mass and warming the planet. I don't know if he has any thoughts on reigniting the core. I did see one idea to combine the martian moons with several asteroids in a mars synchronous orbit, which might warm the core by tidal friction.

That would require engineering and propulsion systems far in advance of anything we can hope for in the near future, so why bring such things into the discussion? It's nice to dream about what our descendants may be capable of hundreds of years from now, but we're talking about our next step in spacefaring.

 

[onesmallstep]

Building a permanent or semi-permanent base is a heck of a lot more expensive than a round-trip to Mars.

Really?....Ya got some numbers to back that up?

Especially with a good chance to answer the biggest question of all time for human existence..

Going to Mars to study some microbes that may or may not be there will answer the the biggest question of all time for human existence....Don't think so.

Doing something BECAUSE it's hard is stupid. Doing something because it has value is SMART.

Exactly...Going to Mars with current technology would be both hard and stupid. You have to crawl before you can walk. Right now we can barely roll over, going to Mars will require us to run a marathon. Going back to the moon to begin surveying its abundant resources which may eventually pave the way to Mars would be smart.

 

[Miket1010]

I don't care where we land, as long as we go to the Moon and beyond. I think president Obama has some good ideas but not returning to the Moon and putting off serious exploration are not good ideas. He wants to create jobs, why not set a aggressive space plan and create thousands of high paying technology related jobs. Take the ISS partners and China to the Moon and build a base and from there on to joint missions to Mars and on to the outer planets. Why wait till maybe 2025 or later when we have the technology to return to the Moon by 2015.
So we build one less Navy Aircraft Carrier or fleet of bombers, can't we already destroy ourselves 20 or 30 times over? Most of our major adversaries will be working with us to explore our solar system.

 

[kelvinzero]

Im glad that at-least this poll had a pretty unambiguous result. Of course it would be the poles. On the other hand I would definitely send robotic rovers first/in the meanwhile.

As for this urge to send people BEO, I wonder how literally people mean this? Surely not many people would think a mission to explore a Lagrange point is as interesting as a mission to a target which actually has materials humans could exploit. The problem is you could well end up with such a meaningless mission, because the current motivation for the HSF budget does not seem to be how do we eventually colonize space, but how do we justify the obscene cost of this launcher.

What excited me most about the VSE and also Obama's budget was the notion that HSF is not about humans flying though space. It should be about permanence, learning how to exploit the local materials, sustainable exploration technology. I would love to see a permanently manned moon base but most importantly we must get some money to exploration technology and not allow every dime to get eaten up by the launcher. I would prefer a permanent, self sufficient colony on the ocean floor to a flags and footprints to the moon or any other target.

 

[netdragon]

Not only should we go to the poles but we also should build the bases deep underground in a natural cave on the moon. That will make it easier to attach structures, protect against all but the largest collisions, and avoid cosmic rays and solar flares.

 

[SteveCNC]

From a resource point of view I say the poles definately although I don't do orbital and landing mechanics so don't know how landing at the poles compares to landing some lattitude closer to the equador , it seems like it would be different but how much harder I don't know .

 

[frphx]

Why do we want to go into these gravity holes? To me the whole idea is to learn to live in space. WE need better launchers--artificial gravity--protection from harmful radiation--and grow our own food in space. You know---live in interplanetary space. Then we can start to explore with some real safety.

 

[Ajboc]

I'm actually voting for artifact retrieval. I strongly doubt the next Moon landing is going to establish any sort of lunar base, and the artifacts could provide valuable insight into the how cosmic radiation and lunar conditions affect man-made objects (future Moon bases included)

 

[Hogan314159]

We should go to the poles.

But to get there lets explore additional technologies in addition to current trends.

VASIMR to ISS and Moon.

Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR).

The successful first-stage fire-up was a collaborative effort between Ad Astra and Nautel of Canada.
“We are elated with this achievement and exceptionally proud of the Ad Astra-Nautel team whose diligence and dedication made it possible
Ad Astra is in negotiations to put a VASIMR test unit aboard the ISS, to help in maintaining station orbit and simultaneously prove the plasma drive tech in space. It seems NASA may not find room for VASIMR on the two remaining planned Shuttle flights, STS 133, and STS 134, to the ISS, but there have been hints that it might travel on a commercial-off-the-shelf lift (for instance aboard a Falcon rocket from Elon Musk's SpaceX venture) - if any of these actually come into service soon.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/28 ... tage_test/

 

[Hogan314159]

Re: There is an option missing!

How about the lunar caves?

That would be so kool.

July 12, 2010: A whole new world came to life for Alice when she followed the White Rabbit down the hole. There was a grinning cat, a Hookah-smoking caterpillar, a Mad Hatter, and much more. It makes you wonder... what's waiting down the rabbit-hole on the Moon?
Down the Lunar Rabbit-hole (Marius Hills, 200px)
This pit in the Moon's Marius Hills is big enough to fit the White House completely inside. Credit: NASA/ LROC/ ASU [larger image]

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is beaming back images of caverns hundreds of feet deep -- beckoning scientists to follow.

"They could be entrances to a geologic wonderland," says Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, principal investigator for the LRO camera. "We believe the giant holes are skylights that formed when the ceilings of underground lava tubes collapsed."

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... abbithole/