We've already been to the moon. What's the big deal? Aren't we supposed to be having backyard barbecues on Mars by now?
The last few weeks have been exciting for space-lovers: ESA landing on Comet 67P, Orion's successful test flight and New Horizons came out of hibernation so we should get to ogle photos of Pluto by January.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., called the Orion launch "Day One of the Mars era," according to the Washington Post. So, why are we going to the moon and not right to Mars?
The United States needs to claim it. China soft-landed the Jade Rabbit in 2013 and is making new rockets to send manned missions to the moon by 2025, according to the Washington Post. Besides national pride, the United States needs to establish a hold on the moon in order to have a say in what happens in future moon missions (by other countries).
Still, Mars! Why watch the same movie (the moon) when a blockbuster film is right around the corner (Mars)? Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has repeatedly said we've been there, done that, but his former flight colleague Neil Armstrong (along with NASA) sees it differently, according to the Washington Post.
We're just not ready.
As celebrity astronaut Chris Hadfield bluntly put it at the Royal Geographical Society in London: "If we started going to Mars any time soon everybody would die."
"We don't know what we are doing yet," he said, according to the Washington Post.. "We have to have a bunch of inventions between now and Mars."
Living on the moon would give us practice before trekking to Mars and colonizing, said NASA planetary scientist Christopher McKay, according to the Washington Post. Not just the technology has to be improved but also ways to manage health while living in space. Going back to the moon could open doors to space tourism or even provide other sources of resource mining, according to the Washington Post.
And a lunar base camp could provide a useful resource as a pit stop for refueling for rockets on longer missions.
Imagine: the moon's very own truck stop.
Where were you 45 years ago when Apollo 11 first landed on the moon?
