6 ms·

Honest question: what is the incentive/motive to go back to the moon now? Part of the motive for the Apollo missions was initial exploration. What is the motive

Honest question: what is the incentive/motive to go back to the moon now? Part of the motive for the Apollo missions was initial exploration. What is the motive now? We've already proven that we can do it. Does a moon base help? And if it's mining for minerals, is it economically a viable plan?

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
The Moon is rich in Helium 3, which is useful in nuclear applications. It's also a good place to coordinate missions to other destinations in the solar system, as the escape velocity is significantly less than that of Earth's, and there's no atmosphere to get in the way - an ideal place to launch from. There are also interesting astronomical benefits to studying the cosmos from the far side of the Moon - no radio interference from Earth to get in the way. It's also a nice place to test new ideas like space elevators from, since a space elevator on the Moon could be built with today's technology. This would play exceedingly well with the idea of using the Moon as a starting point for future missions, since you could get pretty much anywhere in the solar system on a very cheap fuel budget if you launched from a Moon-based space elevator.
- afterburner 10y ago
  Helium-3 would be useful for nuclear fusion reactors, but only once we get that actually working. If. Also has it actually been confirmed that He-3 can be found in abundance on the Moon? I think it's assumed with good reason, but not necessarily confirmed.
- dTal 10y ago
  Don't hold your breath on Helium 3: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1
burkaman 10y ago
Building a moon base would probably be good practice for building one on another planet. It could also provide opportunities for lots of research that isn't possible on Earth or on the ISS.
interfixus 10y ago
Step outside. Look up. There's your incentive.
- blizkreeg 10y ago
  Not sure if you meant it as snark but didn't we already do that with the moon specifically 45y ago? My question was just trying to understand incentives beyond looking up.
  - interfixus 10y ago
    No snark intended, and none, I trust, taken. There will be grubby, workaday incentives galore, all the usual politics, power, and pecuniae. "Because it's there" just grabs my fancy somewhat tighter.
    - blizkreeg 10y ago
      None taken :)
    - blendo 10y ago
      From the link: "On their way to the moon, the Apollo 17 crew took one of the most iconic photographs in space-program history, the full view of the Earth dubbed "The Blue Marble." Despite it's fame, the photograph hasn't really been appreciated, Cernan said in 2007. "What is the real meaning of seeing this picture? I've always said, I've said for a long time, I still believe it, it's going to be -- well it's almost fifty now, but fifty or a hundred years in the history of mankind before we look back and really understand the meaning of Apollo. Really understand what humankind had done when we left, when we truly left this planet, we're able to call another body in this universe our home. We did it way too early considering what we're doing now in space. It's almost as if JFK reached out into the twenty-first century where we are today, grabbed hold of a decade of time, slipped it neatly into the (nineteen) sixties and seventies (and) called it Apollo." Gene Cernan had poetry in his soul.
- pjmorris 10y ago
  It has been written ('Apollo', Murray and Cox, highly recommended) that the Apollo engineers did exactly that.
david-given 10y ago
Science, exploration, and personal satisfaction. Don't underestimate that last; frontier exploration is a massive part of many of our cultures, but the painful truth is that there aren't any left on Earth. Everything's owned by somebody. Moving into space could have an almost religious impact down here. The science is mostly geology and astronomy --- the moon is a great place for observatories --- but mainly it's engineering and life sciences; the moon makes a great place to learn about how to solve the kinds of problems that you have to solve when living somewhere like the moon. Which sounds tautological, but it's all stuff that we have no idea about and the moon, being on Earth's doorstep, as a good place to start. Much further down the line, mineral exploitation. Trying to establish a proper presence in space by hauling everything out of Earth's gravity well is ludicrous, and the moon's the obvious place to go for resources. But that's much further down the line; we need to have people living on a regular basis on the moon first. Even learning how to do simple things like refining metal there is going to be hard. (See above, under 'engineering'.)
- blizkreeg 10y ago
  Thanks.
- funkymike 10y ago
  The sea is still a frontier. There is a lot about the oceans that we still do not understand.
  - simonh 10y ago
    I don't see how the existence of one frontier of exploration precludes pursuing other frontiers of exploration. Has there ever been a period in which humanity chose to dedicate itself to one particular field of endeavor at the exclusion of others? If that's not what you're suggesting, what exactly is this comment supposed to mean?
    - funkymike 10y ago
      I was responding to the idea that there are no more frontiers on earth left to explore. "frontier exploration is a massive part of many of our cultures, but the painful truth is that there aren't any left on Earth."
pdonis 10y ago
Going to the moon, and space exploration more generally, is not something that can be justified based on economics. We simply don't know enough about the future to know the potential upsides vs. the potential downsides of going vs. not going, particularly when the most significant consequences could be decades or centuries or more away. Those of us who advocate doing it are basing that on a general principle that exploration can eventually pay dividends, or, to look at it from the other side, not exploring can eventually lead to extinction.
tzs 10y ago
Long term, we probably want to have facilities at the Earth/Moon and Earth/Sun Lagrange points. These can be used as part of a system for cheap (but slow) interplanetary transport network (ITN). (See [1]). When we have that we can start sending supplies ahead on a regular schedule to places that we want to establish human occupied facilities at later. The idea is that if we plan to put humans at X, we start sending cargo drops to X every few months via the slow but cheap ITN. After those start arriving at X, we send the humans. The ship for transporting humans only has to carry enough supplies to keep the humans alive during the trip. It doesn't have to carry supplies to keep them alive at X, or equipment to set up their base or colony at X, because those have already been sent via the ITN. The ship for the humans can be optimized for one task: moving humans fast. Setting all of the above up working with materials from the Moon and from bases on the Moon will be a lot less expensive than doing it from Earth. First, the gravity difference makes it a lot cheaper to get something from the Moon to an arbitrary point (like one of those Lagrange points) than it does to get it from Earth to there. Second, because the Moon has no significant atmosphere you can do things on the surface that would not work well on Earth. For instance, on the Moon you could build a long linear electric motor on the surface and use it to speed a vehicle up to escape velocity. Try that on the surface of the Earth and your vehicle is going to get destroyed by friction in the atmosphere. The Moon is the key to long term human utilization of the rest of the solar system. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Netwo...
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Because it's a step in the process of making moon bases, and eventually Mars bases, asteroid bases, Jovian-moon bases, deep-space bases, and eventually interstellar bases economically viable. The Earth is very small, and the universe is very large. Eventually, we're going to want to use more than an earth-sized corner of it. Why not start now?
andrewflnr 10y ago
Honest answer: because on the moon (in a pressurized environment), you can fly with wings strapped to your arms. That's enough for me.
mulmen 10y ago
I didn't realize the Apollo program covered the entire Moon and that we now know everything about it. /s
hyperliner 10y ago
There are a lot of benefits, as others have mentioned, that come from science and exploration. There is another related one, which is the many kids in high school who will then decide that maybe going into Sciences or some space related field is really worth pursing and making a living out of, rather than, say, decide to focus on building an app that makes a whipping sound when you shake your phone, or various funny noises: you get the idea.
fergie 10y ago
To develop the technology for further exploration into space. Why explore? Man has been asking that question since the beginning.
simonh 10y ago
Frankly there is very little reason if the costs are similar to that of the Apollo program. It's just too expensive for any reasonable return compared to sending robot probes. However if the costs can be cut by a couple of orders of magnitude, that picture changes considerably. All of a sudden the scientific payback in terms of geological insight into the history of the Earth/Moon system or resource extraction such as water and fuel become a lot more attractive. With SpaceX and Blue Origin working hard to do exactly that, it's quite possible we might return to the moon in a decade or two.
- mulmen 10y ago
  Is Blue Origin trying to reach the Moon? I'm not aware of a project from Spacex or Blue Origin to do so. Spacex has their sights on Mars and Blue Origin seems to be about space tourism (orbit maybe). I admit to not being aware of the long term goals of Blue Origin though so maybe I missed something.

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago

The Moon is rich in Helium 3, which is useful in nuclear applications. It's also a good place to coordinate missions to other destinations in the solar system, as the escape velocity is significantly less than that of Earth's, and there's no atmosphere to get in the way - an ideal place to launch from. There are also interesting astronomical benefits to studying the cosmos from the far side of the Moon - no radio interference from Earth to get in the way. It's also a nice place to test new ideas like space elevators from, since a space elevator on the Moon could be built with today's technology. This would play exceedingly well with the idea of using the Moon as a starting point for future missions, since you could get pretty much anywhere in the solar system on a very cheap fuel budget if you launched from a Moon-based space elevator.

afterburner 10y ago
Helium-3 would be useful for nuclear fusion reactors, but only once we get that actually working. If. Also has it actually been confirmed that He-3 can be found in abundance on the Moon? I think it's assumed with good reason, but not necessarily confirmed.
dTal 10y ago
Don't hold your breath on Helium 3: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1

burkaman 10y ago

Building a moon base would probably be good practice for building one on another planet. It could also provide opportunities for lots of research that isn't possible on Earth or on the ISS.

interfixus 10y ago

Step outside. Look up. There's your incentive.

blizkreeg 10y ago
Not sure if you meant it as snark but didn't we already do that with the moon specifically 45y ago? My question was just trying to understand incentives beyond looking up.
- interfixus 10y ago
  No snark intended, and none, I trust, taken. There will be grubby, workaday incentives galore, all the usual politics, power, and pecuniae. "Because it's there" just grabs my fancy somewhat tighter.
  - blizkreeg 10y ago
    None taken :)
  - blendo 10y ago
    From the link: "On their way to the moon, the Apollo 17 crew took one of the most iconic photographs in space-program history, the full view of the Earth dubbed "The Blue Marble." Despite it's fame, the photograph hasn't really been appreciated, Cernan said in 2007. "What is the real meaning of seeing this picture? I've always said, I've said for a long time, I still believe it, it's going to be -- well it's almost fifty now, but fifty or a hundred years in the history of mankind before we look back and really understand the meaning of Apollo. Really understand what humankind had done when we left, when we truly left this planet, we're able to call another body in this universe our home. We did it way too early considering what we're doing now in space. It's almost as if JFK reached out into the twenty-first century where we are today, grabbed hold of a decade of time, slipped it neatly into the (nineteen) sixties and seventies (and) called it Apollo." Gene Cernan had poetry in his soul.
pjmorris 10y ago
It has been written ('Apollo', Murray and Cox, highly recommended) that the Apollo engineers did exactly that.

david-given 10y ago

Science, exploration, and personal satisfaction. Don't underestimate that last; frontier exploration is a massive part of many of our cultures, but the painful truth is that there aren't any left on Earth. Everything's owned by somebody. Moving into space could have an almost religious impact down here. The science is mostly geology and astronomy --- the moon is a great place for observatories --- but mainly it's engineering and life sciences; the moon makes a great place to learn about how to solve the kinds of problems that you have to solve when living somewhere like the moon. Which sounds tautological, but it's all stuff that we have no idea about and the moon, being on Earth's doorstep, as a good place to start. Much further down the line, mineral exploitation. Trying to establish a proper presence in space by hauling everything out of Earth's gravity well is ludicrous, and the moon's the obvious place to go for resources. But that's much further down the line; we need to have people living on a regular basis on the moon first. Even learning how to do simple things like refining metal there is going to be hard. (See above, under 'engineering'.)

blizkreeg 10y ago
Thanks.
funkymike 10y ago
The sea is still a frontier. There is a lot about the oceans that we still do not understand.
- simonh 10y ago
  I don't see how the existence of one frontier of exploration precludes pursuing other frontiers of exploration. Has there ever been a period in which humanity chose to dedicate itself to one particular field of endeavor at the exclusion of others? If that's not what you're suggesting, what exactly is this comment supposed to mean?
  - funkymike 10y ago
    I was responding to the idea that there are no more frontiers on earth left to explore. "frontier exploration is a massive part of many of our cultures, but the painful truth is that there aren't any left on Earth."

pdonis 10y ago

Going to the moon, and space exploration more generally, is not something that can be justified based on economics. We simply don't know enough about the future to know the potential upsides vs. the potential downsides of going vs. not going, particularly when the most significant consequences could be decades or centuries or more away. Those of us who advocate doing it are basing that on a general principle that exploration can eventually pay dividends, or, to look at it from the other side, not exploring can eventually lead to extinction.

tzs 10y ago

Long term, we probably want to have facilities at the Earth/Moon and Earth/Sun Lagrange points. These can be used as part of a system for cheap (but slow) interplanetary transport network (ITN). (See [1]). When we have that we can start sending supplies ahead on a regular schedule to places that we want to establish human occupied facilities at later. The idea is that if we plan to put humans at X, we start sending cargo drops to X every few months via the slow but cheap ITN. After those start arriving at X, we send the humans. The ship for transporting humans only has to carry enough supplies to keep the humans alive during the trip. It doesn't have to carry supplies to keep them alive at X, or equipment to set up their base or colony at X, because those have already been sent via the ITN. The ship for the humans can be optimized for one task: moving humans fast. Setting all of the above up working with materials from the Moon and from bases on the Moon will be a lot less expensive than doing it from Earth. First, the gravity difference makes it a lot cheaper to get something from the Moon to an arbitrary point (like one of those Lagrange points) than it does to get it from Earth to there. Second, because the Moon has no significant atmosphere you can do things on the surface that would not work well on Earth. For instance, on the Moon you could build a long linear electric motor on the surface and use it to speed a vehicle up to escape velocity. Try that on the surface of the Earth and your vehicle is going to get destroyed by friction in the atmosphere. The Moon is the key to long term human utilization of the rest of the solar system. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Netwo...

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

Because it's a step in the process of making moon bases, and eventually Mars bases, asteroid bases, Jovian-moon bases, deep-space bases, and eventually interstellar bases economically viable. The Earth is very small, and the universe is very large. Eventually, we're going to want to use more than an earth-sized corner of it. Why not start now?

andrewflnr 10y ago

Honest answer: because on the moon (in a pressurized environment), you can fly with wings strapped to your arms. That's enough for me.

mulmen 10y ago

I didn't realize the Apollo program covered the entire Moon and that we now know everything about it. /s

hyperliner 10y ago

There are a lot of benefits, as others have mentioned, that come from science and exploration. There is another related one, which is the many kids in high school who will then decide that maybe going into Sciences or some space related field is really worth pursing and making a living out of, rather than, say, decide to focus on building an app that makes a whipping sound when you shake your phone, or various funny noises: you get the idea.

fergie 10y ago

To develop the technology for further exploration into space. Why explore? Man has been asking that question since the beginning.

simonh 10y ago

Frankly there is very little reason if the costs are similar to that of the Apollo program. It's just too expensive for any reasonable return compared to sending robot probes. However if the costs can be cut by a couple of orders of magnitude, that picture changes considerably. All of a sudden the scientific payback in terms of geological insight into the history of the Earth/Moon system or resource extraction such as water and fuel become a lot more attractive. With SpaceX and Blue Origin working hard to do exactly that, it's quite possible we might return to the moon in a decade or two.

mulmen 10y ago
Is Blue Origin trying to reach the Moon? I'm not aware of a project from Spacex or Blue Origin to do so. Spacex has their sights on Mars and Blue Origin seems to be about space tourism (orbit maybe). I admit to not being aware of the long term goals of Blue Origin though so maybe I missed something.