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We don't need to colonise Mars first. Luna can act as a perfectly good spring board to test and develop the tools and infrastructure needed to colonise the Red
by BobbyBat 6y ago
We don't need to colonise Mars first. Luna can act as a perfectly good spring board to test and develop the tools and infrastructure needed to colonise the Red planet. It has a lower gravity well then Earth, meaning that there is a potential to develop new materials and drugs on the surface or in zero g that could benefit Earth.
- valuearb 6y agoLuna is a terrible platform. It still has a large gravity well that requires massive amounts of fuel to land on, and return from. And the moon is a desert devoid of useful resources. Building in low earth orbit will always be far cheaper.
- evgen 6y agoIt has a gravity well, but it is not accurate to call it 'large.' LEO is deeper into a gravity well than the surface of the Moon; it takes less delta-v to get just about anywhere (including Geosync orbit) from the surface of the moon than from an LEO on an inclination given by a launch from Kennedy Space Center.
- valuearb 6y agoNope, it takes far more delta-v to get from Luna to anywhere because everything launched from Luna first has to be landed on Luna. Without aerobraking that takes a large amount of delta-v.