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I've nothing against Mars, more surprise that it's not via lunar orbit staging as the last several explanations of how we'd get there that I've seen. Like it wa

I've nothing against Mars, more surprise that it's not via lunar orbit staging as the last several explanations of how we'd get there that I've seen. Like it was a big obvious advantage. Mars first has the enormous advantage that it's tangibly in progress, however early, rather than being a great NASA idea that isn't getting funded. So I don't actually care which if only one is having rockets built. I saw enough artist impressions in the 80s. ;) My recollection of the NASA idea was a Mars voyage would reconfigure/refuel at the space station but never land on the moon. The moonbase is the warehouse, fuel and whatever else would be needed to keep space station fed, and gets developed into manufacturing. Lower G meaning larger vehicles, lower launch cost and so forth. The station at L2 was supposed to be a good jumping off point for anywhere - Mars, asteroids, rest of solar system - supposedly the most fuel efficient way to all(?) of them from here. It's a while since I last read about that, so I may be mistaken on details.

david-given 10y ago
Mars is sexy and looks like a place --- people can see the pictures from the Mars rovers and imagine themselves being there. It's got weather and wind and interesting landscapes. It's featured in myths and legends for so long that it has a special place in people's heart. I can totally see it being used as the end goal of a fairly long plan. The Moon's not very sexy. It's all dusty blacks and greys. Everyone knows it's a dead rock, we've already been there, and public consciousness is dominated by the Apollo program pictures of astronauts in gigantic, bulky spacesuits. (This is mostly perpetrated by NASA unaccountably not sending any decent rovers to the Moon. Even the most recent lander, China's Chang'e, deliberately landed in the most boring place they could find. There aren't any interesting pictures of the moon because we haven't been anywhere interesting.) ISRU's hard there, too. There's water ice you can mine, but carbon? I don't know where you'd get that. But... if I were building a water ice mining plant destined for Mars, I'd want to test it somewhere. The Moon's a good place. So now I've landed an ITP ship with a mining rig. I'm going to load it with scientific instruments, too. And scientists. In fact, I might as well land two; it's good practice for Mars. And we're mining water, so we might as well use it, and help test the recycling systems. After all, the Moon's close enough that you can dash back to Earth in an emergency; it's the ideal place. We've got two ships; let's use one to recycle the crew on the other, and leave it there long term; there's plenty of interesting science to do, and it's all excellent practice. So I'd be really surprised if a long-term presence on the Moon didn't sneak into this plan by the back door. And then if a carbon source were to be discovered in large enough quantities for meaningful ISRU, then sourcing methane from the moon would slot neatly in.
- nickik 10y ago
  Landing on the moon is just as difficult as la to mars. Operating on the moon is much much harder. Getting back is hard because there is no easy ISRU way to do it. Nobody will go to the moon to test stuff. Getting water on the moon is a completely different problem then getting water on mars. Testing these things on the moon is totally insane anyway.The moon has some water, we don't know how much, and not exactly were it is. Mining it would be extremely difficult, specially without a nuclear reactor. As for recycling systems, we are already good at them. We can and do test them on earth. We do test them on ISS. There is no need to go to mars, to these systems. On Mars the most important resources for ISRU is easily and everywhere available, on the moon that is not the case. The Science on Mars could answer fundamental questions about live, that is almost impossible on mars. Mars is clearly far more interesting from a scientific perspective. That is not even a point worth debating. I am all for going back to the moon eventually, but mars is far more important. If you want to go to mars, go to mars.

david-given 10y ago

Mars is sexy and looks like a place --- people can see the pictures from the Mars rovers and imagine themselves being there. It's got weather and wind and interesting landscapes. It's featured in myths and legends for so long that it has a special place in people's heart. I can totally see it being used as the end goal of a fairly long plan. The Moon's not very sexy. It's all dusty blacks and greys. Everyone knows it's a dead rock, we've already been there, and public consciousness is dominated by the Apollo program pictures of astronauts in gigantic, bulky spacesuits. (This is mostly perpetrated by NASA unaccountably not sending any decent rovers to the Moon. Even the most recent lander, China's Chang'e, deliberately landed in the most boring place they could find. There aren't any interesting pictures of the moon because we haven't been anywhere interesting.) ISRU's hard there, too. There's water ice you can mine, but carbon? I don't know where you'd get that. But... if I were building a water ice mining plant destined for Mars, I'd want to test it somewhere. The Moon's a good place. So now I've landed an ITP ship with a mining rig. I'm going to load it with scientific instruments, too. And scientists. In fact, I might as well land two; it's good practice for Mars. And we're mining water, so we might as well use it, and help test the recycling systems. After all, the Moon's close enough that you can dash back to Earth in an emergency; it's the ideal place. We've got two ships; let's use one to recycle the crew on the other, and leave it there long term; there's plenty of interesting science to do, and it's all excellent practice. So I'd be really surprised if a long-term presence on the Moon didn't sneak into this plan by the back door. And then if a carbon source were to be discovered in large enough quantities for meaningful ISRU, then sourcing methane from the moon would slot neatly in.

nickik 10y ago
Landing on the moon is just as difficult as la to mars. Operating on the moon is much much harder. Getting back is hard because there is no easy ISRU way to do it. Nobody will go to the moon to test stuff. Getting water on the moon is a completely different problem then getting water on mars. Testing these things on the moon is totally insane anyway.The moon has some water, we don't know how much, and not exactly were it is. Mining it would be extremely difficult, specially without a nuclear reactor. As for recycling systems, we are already good at them. We can and do test them on earth. We do test them on ISS. There is no need to go to mars, to these systems. On Mars the most important resources for ISRU is easily and everywhere available, on the moon that is not the case. The Science on Mars could answer fundamental questions about live, that is almost impossible on mars. Mars is clearly far more interesting from a scientific perspective. That is not even a point worth debating. I am all for going back to the moon eventually, but mars is far more important. If you want to go to mars, go to mars.