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"Moon to Mars" is hot concept at NASA right now: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/moon2mars/ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/moon2mars/ . The idea is essentially: s
by jrussino 8y ago
"Moon to Mars" is hot concept at NASA right now:
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/moon2mars/ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/moon2mars/ .
The idea is essentially: send people to the moon (to stay) in the 2020's, and then to Mars in the 2030's.
In addition to being interesting in its own right, the technology that we need to develop to permanently occupy the moon will be applicable to future missions to Mars (and other parts of the solar system). It's an easier intermediate step, and a moon base can serve as a "gateway" to further exploration.
- elsonrodriguez 8y agoThe Moon and Mars are two separate goals for the foreseeable future. It'll be at least a lifetime before we can launch Mars-bound payloads from the Moon as reliably or cheaply as we can from Earth. Making one dependent on the other is bad for both. If you hobble a Moon mission with Mars exploration requirements, then that's resources wasted that could go directly to Lunar exploration. If you hobble a Mars program with a dependency on a Moon base, then you ensure that you'll die before seeing a human on Mars.