Going to the moon in 2024

[Martinjmpr]

I'm old enough to remember the excitement about the first Apollo missions, so I think this is a good thing. However where Apollo was a "let's do it to see if we can do it" type mission, I would hope a future mission would be more focused on what we can achieve that would benefit us in the future, too. Things like mining rare materials like Helium 3 that could potentially be used for energy production, other rare or esoteric materials that have potential to replace some of the minerals we use on earth, etc.

[Irving]

I'm not saying I disagree with exploring the oceans. Not at all. Also, I should clarify, you didn't say we should do that instead. One of the responses I saw on Twitter was "What about spending all those millions of dollars on cancer research?" Why not do both? I don't get it.

[hatidua]

Why not do both? I don't get it.

$

[Irving]

$

Well of course, but there is no single issue that outweighs everything else. Cancer isn't the only thing.

[hatidua]

Well of course, but there is no single issue that outweighs everything else. Cancer isn't the only thing.

-potentially not, unless you are dying of it. suffice to say, going to the moon, again, isn't making anyone's latte cheaper or easing anyone's morning commute. I get it, you want to see a rocket blast off, headed for the moon. The reality is that it costs a metric-@#$%-ton of money to go to a place that is a barren rock, with bragging rights to say "lookie here, we went, -again".

[Justin]

-potentially not, unless you are dying of it. suffice to say, going to the moon, again, isn't making anyone's latte cheaper or easing anyone's morning commute. I get it, you want to see a rocket blast off, headed for the moon. The reality is that it costs a metric-@#$%-ton of money to go to a place that is a barren rock, with bragging rights to say "lookie here, we went, -again".

The implications go far beyond watching a launch, even though launches are fundamentally cool.

The ultimate implication in manned space exploration is as a way to lay the fundamental groundwork to stave off the extinction of the human race.

And, ultimately, Artemis isn't (or shouldn't) be about recreating a stunt where we go and pick up a couple rocks and do a few basic experiments, but about establishing the fundamental infrastructure where long-term experiments and business concepts can be conducted that will pave the way for eventually moving on to doing manned missions and business development in other locations like Mars and Ceres. The initial concept here should be more about establishing a facility similar to McMurdo rather than just doing a flags 'n' footprints stunt. As an example, the amount of useful science that's been done on the ISS has been utterly tremendous, and that's with a facility that's rapidly aging and can only support six astronauts at any given time. A lunar facility capable of supporting two or three times that number of astronauts for a few months at a time would very, very likely pay incredible scientific dividends.

There are also national security issues as well. The Chinese have already successfully landed two lunar rovers, and are rapidly bootstrapping the technology needed to execute a manned mission, and my understanding is they're also planning on implementing a manned facility as well, most likely at the lunar south pole where ample supplies of light and water are available.

[Justin]

James Cameron already went to the bottom of the ocean.

There's nothing there, and even if there were any resources worth exploiting, I guarantee you that any development would be put to a halt on environmental conservation grounds.

[CS1983]

So we just muck up space instead? (well, we already are with all the trash circling our planet, but I digress)

[Justin]

I assume you're joking, but a trillion humans operating all over the solar system wouldn't even have a noticeable impact on any sort of rational scale of measurement.

[CS1983]

I dunno man. An insignificant number of Spaniards unintentionally wiped out huge civilizations by breathing on them. We don't know what we don't know. And presently, we know very little about human impacts on other environments having no real good data or awareness of them aside from speculation.

I find it to be a certainly risible level of hubris to think that the very species which has mucked it up (well, supposedly), through the same motivating factors as those which motivate the current drive to explore space (read: profit -- altruism in the main players is a myth), shall accomplish a different result (if the present's result is to truly be believed as anthropomorphic).