By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I’ve been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just… don’t care at all. I’m not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven’t clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I’m wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.
I should be way more excited, but the current administration has ruined everything. NASA is too focused on creating a moon base which is dumb as shit. Let’s try and save earth before jumping ship to another planet.
Advancements in space can advance humanity on Earth. Like practical solar panels were first created for a satellite. There are experiments that need to be done in low G or zero G like for material science, a permanent moon base could accelerate those advancements. Also experiments on bio printing living cells have been done on the ISS, zero G makes it easier to scaffold the cells into a structure. Maybe a moon base makes it easier to grow organs on an industrial scale.
Why dumb?
Even if you want a Mars base eventually, it seems like a good idea to get some practice building a similar moon base first. Many of the problems will be the same, but it will be much easier, cheaper, and safer to learn them in a place which is only days away from resupply.
Yeah I’d argue time is actually the most expensive thing for a mars mission. And that’s going to require a hell of a lot of mission time nobody knows how to do yet. We get a head start on it now, getting a working lifter series in production and a functioning commercial lander and habitation scene and you’ll have a much better mars mission. I think the view of mars or bust asap asap comes from a lack of understanding of how big the technical leap is from doing a moon to doing a mars mission.
same, i think thats why its not interesting, the WHITE house has created so many distractions that the nasa isnt even that noticable, just a temporarly headlines that would be instantly forgotten in a few days.