"Being either inside the habitat or inside a suit means that you're never able to actually FEEL the moon/planet you're on. "It is completely devoid of any vegetation, all they see is rocks, regolith (loose rocks and dust), and a sky that is different from ours on Earth," she told AFP by email. She had spent a year in a mock Mars environment in Hawaii. Woerner told AFP the goal "is to join international efforts and to bridge Earthly borders and crises."īut for those who think the Moon offers an escape from an Earth threatened by climate change and nuclear war, physicist Christiane Heinicke warns it is a "tough" life, and not for everyone. Robotic exploration is already underway, with several Moon landers and rovers planned for the coming years. 'Tough' lifeĮxperts argue that the future lies in collaboration between increasingly cash-strapped national space agencies and the private sector, which can profit from selling resources such as Moon-derived rocket fuel. it is 40 times cheaper to go from the Moon than from Earth, because the Earth has such high gravity that you have to fight against it," explained Foing. Water can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen, two gases which explode when mixed - providing rocket fuel. The main target is water, locked up in ice on the Moon's poles. There is also helium-3, a rare isotope on our planet but common on the Moon, that could theoretically be used to generate cleaner, safer nuclear energy for Earth. Potential Moon resources include basalt, a volcanic rock Beldavs said could be used as a raw material for 3D-printing satellites to be deployed from the Moon at a fraction of the cost of a launch from high-gravity Earth. The missing link? "To demonstrate that industrial activity on the Moon is feasible, that. We still don't have the top leaders interested," said physicist Vidvuds Beldavs of the University of Latvia, who runs a project called the International Lunar Decade, advocating joint exploration of the Moon. Scientists and commercial prospectors are keen on the concept, but politicians have yet to bite - a reluctance that, for now, cripples the idea. The ISS is due to be decommissioned in 2024 - the end of an era of unprecedented cooperation in space after the Cold War rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union.įorty years after humankind set foot on Earth's satellite as a result of that fierce contest of one-upmanship, Woerner has proposed a village on the long-abandoned Moon as the next phase in space teamwork.
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