Glittering-Jello-935 t1_je8004p wrote
Reply to comment by Glittering-Jello-935 in We Need to Get Back to the Moon by Guy_PCS
The desire to live on the moon is no more that romanticism
bookers555 t1_je89go6 wrote
And utilitarian, the Moon is a gateway to the rest of the Solar system. Even the Apollo LM descent stage reached orbit on its own in one stage. Now imagine rockets launched from the Moon, how far they could go without having to be completely spent just on getting a spacecraft into orbit like when launched from Earth. We wouldnt even need rockets even aside from the ones taking people to the Moon in the first place.
Living on the Moon wouldnt exactly be a vacation by all means, it would be just like the astronauts on the ISS, people living a strange and at times uncomfortable life for the sake of human progress.
Glittering-Jello-935 t1_je8bpih wrote
Assuming your scenario works, a connecting flight spaceport on the moon, it would still be better to use to robots. From the point of view of mass regularly required to be sent from earth to keep people alivee
Also: if you have the technology to do manned flight to the outer solar system, and why you would I can't fathom, it's a 100x more difficult problem than going to the moon, with far less payoff, you likely have the technology to bypass the extra gravity well as a needless waste.
bookers555 t1_je8du29 wrote
That depends on how advanced we can make those robots, even the most advanced robots today are very clunky, and this base could be built within a decade.
Look at Mars rovers, it takes them months to do what a human could do in 20 minutes with a shovel and a microscope.
Plus there's the fact that if we can mantain a crewed base on the Moon we would gain invaluable experience on just how to mantain people in other worlds. Mars itself isnt fit for practice given that its a 9 month trip with current tech.
The ISS could have also been a crew less station, and yet we put people there to not just make everything way smoother than machines can do, but also to learn about the effect space has on the human body.
Also, this is specifically go to nearby planets. Launching from the Moon would make a Mars landing far more feasible since you are going to need the rocket itself to leave Mars, plus help shorten a trip thats already uncomfortably long.
The outer Solar system is going to requiere newer tech, but launching from the Moon will help.
Glittering-Jello-935 t1_je9u1v7 wrote
How exactly would launching from the moon make it easier to launch to Mars? Everything that you put on the moon had already been launched from Earth. And in particular, how would having to land on another planetary body, one not far from Earth with it's own gravity and much faster revolution period, make a trip to Mars faster?
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