I didn’t think it was possible to admire Buzz Aldrin more than I once did, but I turned out to be wrong, because my admiration for him increased significantly the time he punched that video stalker slanderer guy.
If we had kept pace with our former space ambitions we could have been entering our second decade with a permanently manned station on the moon and be less than a decade from walking on mars.
I agree with Buzz. I think a mission to Mars would be a good idea right now. NASA really needs something to do with their time. Their constant pimping of Algore’s “global warming” hoax and scam has really begun to piss me off. It’s “not your daddy’s NASA” anymore.
A return to the Moon should be done first by nuclear powered tunneling robots, to test the capability of eventually doing the same on Mars.
There are a many reasons for using this approach. To start with, having tunnels for habitation strongly reduces the difficulties posed by bringing a new habitation every time astronauts land. It strongly limits vacuum, extremes of heat and cold, cosmic and enhanced radiation, and the very abrasive lunar dust.
Tunnels allow far more resources and equipment to be brought by the astronauts, meaning that missions can last longer. Robots can slowly and methodically work for years before the astronauts arrive, and their nuclear engine can provide abundant energy for heat and electrical equipment.
Most importantly, it means that missions are cumulative, so that the astronauts don’t have to start from “square one”, every time they arrive.
The tunneling robots arrive on a one way trip, which means their lander can be cannibalized for parts, such things as tunnel reinforcing rod, pressure doors, wall, flooring and ceiling. The robots do not have to be fast. Even if they only mine one inch of rock a day, in a single year the tunnel would be over 30 feet long.
Periodically, the tunneling robot would insert ceramic rod into the ceiling, which is standard practice in modern hard rock mining, but once the tunnel is mined, it would spray the interior with sealant, against micro-fissures. When the pressure doors are emplaced, they can even do a pressure test, prior to the arrival of the astronauts.
And once the astronauts return to Earth, the tunneling robots can go back to work, mining secondary tunnels, cisterns for water storage, or even mining water ice deposits.
Let’s just do it!