From the moon to March

When I was six, my parents gave me a book about NASA's missions, which should have been shortly after the landing of Apollo 11. I keep no memory of this mission. My parents told me that we were traveling by car to get back to Rosario, that the traffic had started to slow down and that the announced landing on the moon, all the cars stopped and honked I remember other landings on the moon, in black and white, and read everything I could about the missions, sources of inspiration for my career.

The Moon is the closest and easiest target to reach. It's hard to think of how to move from Apollo-type missions, where the goal was rather geopolitical / scientific with a reduced number of astronauts, to more habitual access, with more people. A base of several dozens of people would explore many aspects of life in space and study the resources available on the Moon. In the future, perhaps not very far from there, someone could develop a tourist / sports complex. In addition, low gravity would develop a whole new series of spectacular sports, such as human flight or acrobatics.

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On the other hand, living on the moon implies the need to be protected from cosmic radiation and storms from particles from the sun.. For now, we do not have an easy way to do it. Apollo mission astronauts ran a certain risk every time they left the protection of the Earth's magnetic field on its way to and from the moon.

As to whether the installation on the moon could facilitate missions to Mars, some aspects of life on the moon and on Mars are common, such as the need to protect oneself from cosmic rays and the challenge of producing electricity. Air, food, water, energy. and fuel in situ to power the base. However, there are others that are totally different. For example, landing on the moon is much easier than on Mars. The moon has a lower gravity and does not have an atmosphere. Everything can be done with a relatively simple propulsion system. Mars has a higher gravity and enough atmosphere to need parachutes, but not enough to eliminate back-flares (as in the case of the Earth). On the other hand, Mars is more interesting from a geological point of view since it had a history much more similar to that of our planet.

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I believe that manned missions on the moon are possible with current technologies and budgets, while a mission with astronauts on Mars is much longer and complicated. Once the political / programmed decision is made, the big space agencies could send astronauts to the Moon in about ten years. To go to Mars, we have to develop a whole series of technologies. It takes at least 25 years of continuous effort, during several periods of government. This makes it much more unlikely.

* Argentine engineer. Scientific leader of the ExoMars mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) which aims to study the planet Mars