yeah that is pretty strange. we haven't been to the moon in 40 years.. imagine what we could do up there now, we could easily have bases and people living there. and travel in space from the moon. but its possible that secret military are already up there, with all their ufos and everything, or maybe there is a et race on the moon and we arent welcome lol, we cant be sure . there is just so much mystery about the moon and it seems silly to go elsewhere

Well everyone and there dog on ATS say there's nothing on the moon so why bother going back there?

I'm sure the Chinese, Russians and the Europeans will be glad to return to the moon - benefit from any economic and mining operations.

Money is probably the reason for potentially dumping the NASA moon colony plan.

In my opinion NASA should be scraped and a new World Wide space program should be implemented to get the world behind it spread the cost instead of having all these different agencies.
NASA can not be trusted people have lost faith in them it's time for a change NASA have not achieved anything since the Moon landings and some do not believe that happend.
What do you think

THANKYOU

Why would we bother going all the way to Mars only to land on a moon? So we can get home perhaps? I can't see any vital point in going to an asteroid. Let's look for life on Mars. Is that too much to ask?

IRM

Maybe i should have started a prediction thread instead of this.
So not many people find it strange that they want to skip the moon
We know nothing about the Moon but they want to go to the moon of Mars or a asteroid.

THANKYOU

I, too, am curious as to their wording of "Destinations that can be reached more easily than the moon", considering the logistics and resources behind a manned mars mission would far overshadow a relatively simple flight to the moon.

I also remember a post a while back (probably a year or more ago) that talked about them going back to gather moon rocks - I thought they gathered a ton of moon rocks the last time they were there?

According to the report, NASA could send a man to an asteroid or the moons of Mars within 15 years, sooner than reaching the moon in 2020

Conclusion: 15 years to finance a moon landing, but sooner to reach Mars or an asteroid. Hmm

[edit on 23-10-2009 by infinite]

This is exactly what I imagined would happen about 4 years ago. The powers that be, say we have a lofty goal like going to the Moon and starting a permenent presence, and then about 4 years later you get a new president and he scraps the old plan and changes direction. This way people continually have their hopes up, but you never actually do anything. This has been going on for about 40 years now.

One thing is clear from the report... Whatever happens we must not be allowed to land on the Moon or Mars at any cost. Why not!?

I'm really fusturated right now, but not suprised at all. Like I said, I thought this was going to happen four years ago. I know Obama still needs to make a descision but I don't have much HOPE at all. This is all leading up to the obvious. I really want to see something interesting happen with space in my lifetime, but this will put anything like landing on the Mars or starting a permenent base on the Moon off for another 30-40 years.

It looks like private companys like Bigelow Areospace and SpaceX are our only hope at this point. Let's cross our fingers for those guys.

Originally posted by mars1
I can see what you are saying it just seems so strange they want to land on a asteroid or the Moon's of mars and to say it would be reached more easily than are moon that can not be right this just makes it seem more likely there is something to hide on the Moon.

The Augustine report lists a number of different paths NASA could take, as I said earlier. One of them is what they call the "Flexible path" which involves doing a variety of things like Lunar flybys/orbits, going to the Lagrange points, going to NEO's and also doing Mars flybys/orbits and going to it's moons. Using and controlling robotic probes on Mars from orbit. They could even do robotic sample returns from both the Moon and Mars this way. It's easier in that they wouldn't need to land on the surface themselves. Landing on the Moon and Mars (especially on Mars) requires more energy and thus becomes more costly, which is what makes it harder.

They do say in the report that landing astronauts on Mars is the ultimate goal. There is a "Mars first path" in the report, but from what I understood, it would be more expensive and difficult to do. They also have a "Moon first path" with the goal of it eventually leading to Mars. But the "Flexible path" seems to be the easier one, as it doesn't require landing on the surface of the Moon or Mars right away, which makes it more affordable. It would still give us practice and experience for travelling longer distances from Earth and spending more time working and living in space. Which can lead to other things like returning to the Lunar surface and eventually Mars. There are a number of different routes one can take with the "Flexible path". If you open the report I linked to above, on page 43 there is a diagram showing the different paths that eventually lead to landing on Mars.

So not many people find it strange that they want to skip the moon
We know nothing about the Moon but they want to go to the moon of Mars or a asteroid.

Who said they want to skip the Moon? Going to the Moon is still apart of the plan. It just might not happen as soon as originally planned. I really recommend reading the Augustine report instead of news articles about it.

[edit on 24-10-2009 by jra]