Why Humans Must Return To The Moon

from the why,-one-of-these-days... dept

Roland Piquepaille writes "Space.com gives us "10 Reasons to Put Humans Back on the Moon." While some of these reasons seem obvious, like our needs for dreams or a common goal for nations to collaborate, some are less expected, like generating energy from lunar power stations. This also could lead to the arrival of space tourism and to a better knowledge of our past through the analysis of craters and rocks in situ. And many new things also might be invented on the Moon just to live there. Finally, with men on the Moon, future explorations of Mars or asteroids could be easier to organize. The original article is spread over ten pages, so I put the full list of these ten reasons on my blog as a single page for your convenience, along with short quotes and other references. "
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2003 @ 3:02am

    Reason #11

    11: so we can stop making top 10 lists about why we need to go to the moon.

    I think the real reasone will become very evident over the next 50 to 100 years: because we can't control ourselves, as a species, from destroying the house we live in... and if we stay on this rock called "earth" nature will eventually get us anyway.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    xdroop, 10 Dec 2003 @ 8:13am

    Uncompelling

    I don't find any of these reasons especially compelling, especially when considered against the massive price tag that such a program would obviously possess.

    The reason for the original moon mission was "Because if we don't the Russians will win", with a large side-serving of "Because we can". The technology wins were bonuses, unexpected winfalls. Such an argument of peripheral technological and product progress is not a reasonable argument for such a mission. What technology has the Space Shuttle program provided us plebes? The ISS is too young to ask the same question about -- but eventually we are going to have to ask.

    I also don't buy the beaming-power-from-space argument -- hands up everyone who would live next to a receiving station... especially when the guidance computers on the transmitter 'wander'.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.