NASA's moon mission under threat

Perhaps this is what a lunar rover, developed under the Resource Prospector program, will look like

The main priority in the development of outer space by the US forces now is to return to the moon . In any case, a few months ago, the President of the country Donald Trump spoke enthusiastically about this. He stated that a flight to Mars and the establishment of a colony there is a difficult task, which remains on the list of priorities, but not in the first place. Much more realistic is the project of a flight to the moon, which is located not far from the Earth, where there is water and, possibly, other resources that are useful for man and his future settlement.

Clive Neal from the University of Notre Dame the other day said that the lunar mission was canceled, and he did not name the reasons for changing the decision and the author. NASA representatives did not confirm the statement of the scientist. Moreover, a representative of the agency, Jim Bradentstein, said that the agency is going to continue further exploration of the Moon by the Resource Prospector project. As part of this mission, the agency even expands the original project, adding the number of upcoming flights to the Earth satellite of research and development vehicles. So far it is unclear whether this is true, or NASA just calms everyone down before announcing the cancellation of the project officially.

Resource Prospector - the preliminary name of the project of the lunar mission, in the framework of which it is planned to launch vehicles on the Moon to study its poles. Part of the task - the search for hydrogen, oxygen and water, resources needed for the work of people who in the future will fly to the moon. In fact, scientists at NASA are confident that Resource Prospector will be the first project to develop an extraterrestrial object, and not just to study it.

The fact that the mission can be canceled was also reported by resources such as NASA Watch and the Verge . Rumors about this are very disturbing to the scientific community, because scientists believe that humanity is extremely necessary to go beyond the limits of its current existence, if we want to develop. In addition, a detailed study of the moon will help to understand what other objects in the solar system can be. It is possible that experts will still receive information that will clarify the origin of both the moon and our entire system.

The project has a special group Lunar Exploration Analysis Group. Its representatives are engaged in conducting various works for NASA and other space agencies. So, this group received an official report from the American agency, where it was said that the mission could start in 2022, after its rethinking.

Representatives of the scientific community broadcast their concerns about what is happening in the media: “If we want to go back to the Moon and start working there, making it the place of research work ... we will need to start exploring the satellite as soon as possible. It is necessary to find elements there, with the help of which it will be possible to create fuel and other components required to maintain the life of the colony. ”

The last man was on the moon 45 years ago, after which the satellite was visited by research equipment, but not too often. According to scientists, there are a large number of valuable human resources on the moon. Some of them can serve as support for the life of the colony, as mentioned above, and some will be useful and the Earth. In particular, it is helium-3, which is very interested in China and India as a fuel for fusion reactors.

On the moon there is water that will be available to the colonists. It is located not on the surface, but in the craters and other places where there are no sunshine — under the influence of the energy of the Sun, ice sublimates. If there is a lot of water and it is suitable for a person (for example, there is no radioactive contamination), then astronauts will have no problems with water. Energy on the moon is generally a huge amount, since its surface is constantly illuminated.

There is also a ten-year program of colonization of the moon, which is called Lunar Oasis . According to this program, equipment and people can be delivered to Earth's satellite in 30 flights. One manned rocket, on average, can deliver about 14 tons of cargo. If you send unmanned vehicles to the moon, the payload increases to 20 tons. For ten, according to the plan, about 600 tons of cargo can be sent to the moon.

As part of this program, it is planned to deliver inflatable dwellings to ten people to be used by the astronauts to the moon. The walls of the residential module are planned to be filled with hydrogen - it is relatively easy to extract from the lunar regolith. The cost of such a program is about $ 550 billion.