3 ms·

I thought the whole idea of "moon bases" were put to rest a long time ago? Not any categories I'm aware of where they are the best option, from mining, forward

• mwill 9y ago
  Rule of cool? Its probably the best bang for the buck to get the general populace interested in space travel again. A Chinese / European moon base would probably breed a whole new generation of space nerds.
• eduren 9y ago
  I feel like it's a stepping stone in more ways than one. There's still plenty we don't know about how our own biology functions outside of Earth's gravity well, atmosphere, or magnetosphere. Long term studies will need to be done, and lunar studies are a much more approachable candidate (cost and mission risk). We could always go straight to Mars and do the research there, but that is the riskier strategy. We'd definitely learn what we need to, but it opens up more failure modes for any colonization mission, and managing the risk on Mars would be expensive. Mars colonization would already be straining our ability to engineer and fund, let alone doing it semi-blind.