Why Mars? Buzz Aldrin Wants a Lunar Base First

In its haste to make new policy, Aldrin and other experts say, NASA is overlooking a critical component of space travel: a permanent, manned base on the moon that would make reaching Mars a much easier task. Establishing a lunar base could provide a safe source of water and a site for fuel depots, which would reduce the cost of transporting fuel from Earth for an eventual Mars mission, Aldrin told Fox News.com.

Fox News Link


Buzz still presses on with a Moon centric space exploration agenda and is forming a new think tank called U.S.S Enterprise to help facilitate this.

With private industry participating in Google Lunar X-prize as well as the Indian and Chinese missions to the moon do we need a US moon plan or have we been there and done that? Is Buzz more stuck in the nostalgia of the moon and less focused on what is the best practical plan for the next half century of human space exploration?

Actually, a moon base just makes sense. ALl the ingredients for fuel and buildings are right there. We can spend a good chuck of money on heavy lifts from Earth to get things started and save money on the ultimate missions to Mars by leveraging the investment on the Moon.

My only real concern about the moon is how would we protect our assets from things like micrometeroids? Then again, we have to resolve that anyway for the Mars trip.

I think the Idea of a moon base is a good idea and the farming of resources to make breathable air, water and fuel is also a great idea but the tech for this doesn't work yet. Why spend money keeping people up there when the purpose of a moon base can't be truly realized for some time. Makes more sense to develop high level automation closer to home and perfect it first before sending people, putting them at risk, for how much added scientific benefit...

reply to post by badmoviefan


Well, basically for the same reason we had the "Manifest Destiny" in North America in the early days of European incursion. Many humans just want to BE there. They want to see it and feel it. Yeah, it would definately be more efficient to pre-set everything with automation; however, it would not be quite as satisfying.

I am glad to hear that. I would love to see man on Mars, but it does not make sense in current technological and financial situation. Do we really want to invest hundreds of billions of dollars, at least a few decades, just to see a flag planting mission like with Moon, and nothing of significance left after us?

On the other hand, a Moonbase could be permanently manned, and we would actually learn to live in space. For the same cost, it could be much bigger than anything we could put on Mars, with refineries extracting water, oxygen and fuel from lunar resources and supporting orbital infrastructure, space stations and fuel depots (even commercial), throughout near-Earth space.

Bushs Constellation program did not make much economical sense, but it was right in one thing - colonisation of the Moon is the next logical step.

You'll only get to set up for Mars and the Belt when you have an active useful Lunar and Orbiter station.

This isn't an either/or situation.

You need to find out if Mars is the most useful/easy place to go first. AND you need to set up the means to do it. Which means you need to figure out both ends.

And you need the resources for it.

Lunar and Earth station is first for development, with Mars being most important for study. If Mars isn't viable, or has something that will be a sure killer factor, then we need to look to something else to crawl out of our swamp towards.

The resources to make the Non-Earth orbit base will need to predominantly NOT come from Earth.

Which means we'll need a base here to launch the original components, and we'll need a base here to work with to make that process of moving those resources towards Mars (or whatever) so that the development resources are in place near the second base

All I want to hear from Mr. Aldrin is about that monolith!


Come on, Buzz, spill it out!



Peace

reply to post by Maslo


Mars won't be a permanent colony unless you can figure out how to restart its core.

Mars is like working in the extreme polar regions for mining. Almost no one chooses to live there. Fewer CAN live there. Those who are there are there for work, and generally they cycle out within a couple of years.

Mars isn't our next living planet.

Mars is our MINING planet. Mars is our INDUSTRIAL planet. Mars is a great big platform looking to have steel warehouses. Better yet, in order to make it better to sustain that the greenhouse effect of industry is actually preferable there.

What it isn't, is a living planet.

reply to post by badmoviefan


Robots are expensive, and not easily replaceable. One robot is the collaborative work of hundreds of people.

People are none of these things, and far more flexible at that.

Starting with a Moon base will make it easier to do harder, further away bases such as Mars. The moon is relatively close and safe (we can get a rescue ship to the moon in a short time -- it'd take many months to get to Mars, even when it's close to the Earth).

Also, there are scientific and other (social, military etc.) reasons to secure a moon base.

In the end I think we should have both but I think we should start close to home and then spread out.

Lots of reasons to go to Mars. Lets see.

Elite Realists:

1. Were in the worst economic region since the great depression.
2. Our debt level is over 13 trillion and counting.
3. We've posioned our own world lets go find a new world to rape its resorces.

Elite Idelists:

1. So we spend trillions of dollars for the next 30 years, but hey will be the FIRST humans to plant an AMERICAN FLAG on the surface of Mars!!!
2. We can find out if that ancient mars base really exists and get all there technology for the USA!
3. We can put our slaves er..people to work with millions of new jobs building space stuff for long term projects.

Elite neutral:

1. Your both crazy.
2. We have to consolidate our power base here on earth before we go out into the stars.
3. We have to program the population better so when we do go to the moon again or Mars no one will give us any grief over the Trillions of dollars will be spending.

The three groups agree with the Elite Neutrals, and begin the new campaign to program the hearts & minds of earth common citizens..They all laugh evilly.

maybe..maybe not..

while i rarely chime in on threads like these, i just wanted to state that i'm with those proposing for a moon base prior to setting up one on mars. a base on the moon is more viable and doable in the short term and would enable us to learn stuff that we need to know before creating a base (temporary or permanent) on mars.

I am sure at some point we will build a Lunar Base but the real question do we focus on it now with expensive new tech development or do we allow private enterprise and foreign powers do some of the heavy lifting while we develop via our NEO missions. I think this is the better strategy for the next ten - twenty years. It's not as "sexy" but it's far more practical considering where we truly are with manned space flight capabilities today.

A moon base would be the best place to start our adventures in space, especially when you look at the risks just getting to Mars, never mind building a base there.

It does seem odd that the push for a base on the moon is getting ignored by the people you would expect to jump at the chance. Makes me think Armstrongs 'warning off' has a little more credence than i previously thought.

The "U.S.S Enterprise" lol

I likes it

I have to say im with him. Unless theres reasons why the Americans want to avoid going back to the moon. (choose your conspiracy). From a logistical stand point it definately makes sense and it would prove that such an endevour is even possible.

Call it a practice base.

reply to post by Aeons

Mars won't be a permanent colony unless you can figure out how to restart its core. Mars is like working in the extreme polar regions for mining. Almost no one chooses to live there. Fewer CAN live there. Those who are there are there for work, and generally they cycle out within a couple of years. Mars isn't our next living planet. Mars is our MINING planet. Mars is our INDUSTRIAL planet. Mars is a great big platform looking to have steel warehouses. Better yet, in order to make it better to sustain that the greenhouse effect of industry is actually preferable there. What it isn't, is a living planet.

I suppose restarting the Martian core is to generate a magnetic field. But absence of magnetic field is not a reason against colonisation of Mars, because there are no magnetic field protected places in solar system either way, except Earth. On the other hand, Martian soil could protect the colonists from radiation very well.

The only reason I see against colonisation of Mars is that it is on the bottom of its gravity well.

What place do you consider suitable for living in solar system, if Mars does not qualify? Space stations?

Whoa!

What's really weird about this is that just a few months ago Buzz was saying we should shoot straight for Mars and sidestep the Moon.

So, the plan was to go to the Moon, and Aldrin tries to get us to go to Mars instead. Now that the "plan" is to go to Mars and the asteroids now he wants us to go to the Moon.

Something very fishy about this.

reply to post by Maslo


Oh, there will be digging on Mars. But it isn't for a place to colonize.

Humans still need light. And humans need food. Food needs the Sun.

Can it all be done artificially? Sure. Very very very expensively.

And everything done in the next couple of hundred years needs to be KISSed and "inexpensive." Because even the most inexpensive models are going to insanely wildly expensive.

We are crossing the great ocean in a Kayak, while dragging along air, and a supply of food, and knowing that there is no possibility of relief for either when the kayak docks on the other side.

Using the Sun isn't optional. It is absolutely necessary. And it is deadly.

Not enough water. Not enough water. Not enough water. Even if they find water frozen there is still Not Enough Water. It is not big enough to sustain a magnetic field - already proven. We don't have the technology to artificially create this. Even if we did, it would still be wildly expensive to maintain compared to a moving core. Which would also be wildly expensive to try and "reboot." Not an ongoing-ly expensive as artificially maintaining it.

Living permenent underground doesn't work for humans. Living on the surface isn't optional for long term residency. It is fine for the sort of settlement I already described - transitory skilled workers in "brief" stints.

To artificially maintain it would mean that the colony would need to be insanely wealthy. Which it won't be. It may become moderately wealthy eventually. People here will NOT maintain another planet's special living systems. You think the complaints about the welfare system are bad now.... Another human colony must be mostly self-sufficient, or so important that maintenance is considered a necessary evil.

Earth isn't big enough to feed two planets of people. And Mars isn't, and never will be, a farm planet. Raisins will be more expensive than bricks of gold. Water wars here will be nothing to the thirst of completely reliant colonies and stations.

One day they may figure out how to drain Venus's atmosphere of its problems. One day they may figure out how to crack its crust. And figure out how to reflect some of its heat. And it still won't be sustaining a large population.

They'll eventually figure out how to warm some of Mars with the same technology turned the opposite way.

And it still won't be enough to maintain more than a few tribes of people.

Your answer - there is NO WHERE else in this system which will maintain any sort of human population of any significant size.

If there was that possibility - there would be something there right now. There is one habitable planet in this system, and we are already on it.

There are three candidate planets in this system. And one is baked, and the other died, and the last one sat in the middle and is going to freeze into a big ball of snow eventually.

The rest of the planets in this system are practice balls of dust. Mars will be special, because it is the gateway to the next important step - resource mining the system for the materials and capital to create the big boats to cross the ocean in sufficient numbers.


OH, and to the person with the "rape" comment. The other planets around this star are dead. There is nothing there. Maybe some people rape rocks - but these perversions in personifying rock doesn't actually make those floating rocks more than floating rocks.

Now that water and helium3 are known to be on the Moon, it makes sense to develop there first. Experince gained living on the moon will assist any mission to mars. Indeed the fuel for ion rockets could be taken from the Moon, thus it makes sense financially too.

Now that China has announced a planned moon mission it almost forces everyone else's hand.

Besides Moonbase Aldrin has a nice ring to it. Moonbase Armstrong, Moonbase Collins. hmm nice tribute.

reply to post by Aeons


When I am talking about colonisation of Mars and other places in the solar system, I do not mean that people will live there like they do on Earth. I mean colonies of mostly scientists and engineers, maybe self-sufficient in basic needs like water, fuel and food, but still very dependent on Earth. And it will indeed be an expensive money sink, because there is nothing in space that we do not have on Earth to export, except space tourism. Think about the ISS or isolated research stations in polar regions, thats my idea of realistic colonisation.