The lunar mission of Elon Musk and the depressing near future of space

Nasa

Of the 12 people, all American men, who walked on the moon, only four are still alive. They are all eighty years old. Two of their fellow astronauts from Apollo have died since the beginning of the year. Over the next few decades, in spite of the constant scientific progress, we will be confronted with a flagrant fact: we will have regressed towards a species of a unique world, our link living on the surface of another world will be passed in history.

Basically, it will be afraid. Of course, the astronauts will always be on top of our heads aboard the International Space Station – which is now approaching 18 years of continuous living – but we will, in some respects, have failed. Even the ISS, one of the largest symbols of human progress, will be eliminated from NASA in 2025, with a low Earth orbit left to the whims of commercial operators.

For the moment, at least, our most intrepid explorers will be billionaires, orbiting the metaphors of roaring rockets of other billionaires. The future performance of Yusaku Maezawa and his merry band of artists running around the moon aboard Elon Musk's Big Falcon Rocket might seem like an exciting preview of the future, but it's a cold, corporate future. reserved for the hyper-rich.

SpaceX's eye-catching plan also lacks the two most valuable products: humility and scientific rigor. They are all roaring rockets and a roaring ego. And artists. With Musk, you would not expect anything less.

In June of last year, I had the chance to meet Harrison Schmitt, the penultimate man on the Moon as part of Apollo 17 and the first and only scientist to set foot on the lunar surface ; and Charlie Duke, the tenth and youngest person to walk on the moon as part of Apollo 16 in 1972. "We certainly have not paid for our travels," Schmitt joked at the time. His point of view was simple: Apollo astronauts were projected on the moon as a bold demonstration of strength at the height of the cold war, but in the decades since they've rightfully become symbols of human progress. And it's a debt that they feel they have to repay.

The near future is nothing like that. If all goes as planned and Maezawa and his cohorts turn around the Moon in 2023 and safely return to Earth through an incredibly small reentry corridor at 25,000 miles by the hour, we will have witnessed a elaborate repetition. As Buzz Aldrin would say: "Bring your ass on Mars!"

Musk has a plan for that too. It will be there in 2024, a decade before the expected arrival of NASA in 2034. Although in the instance of Musk, it is necessary to use the word "plan" with caution. Because beyond a strange flash of hyperbole, there is apparently no one. Taking pictures of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX has become a spectator sport in recent months, but while Musk could keep his sci-fi promises at some point, it would be naïve to expect from the private sector that he exceeds NASA. Or the Chinese.

The space is tough and in the race between Musk the Hare and Nasa the Tortoise, you'd be crazy to bet on the first one. Earlier this year, NASA received an astonishingly generous $ 19.9 billion budget for fiscal year 2019, including $ 10.5 billion spent on lunar exploration. A crewed mission is planned for 2023, the space agency then planning to send humans to Mars.

And then, who knows. Rival and incompatible colonies of Mars, owned and operated by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos? Does Donald Trump's Space Force tear blocks of illegal Chinese mining stations on the moon? The irrefutable discovery of extraterrestrial life somewhere in our solar system? A dark, distant but undeniable signal from another civilization, picked up by the Heavenly Eye radio telescope in Guizhou Province, China? The discovery of a foreign language that we understand as a tool to perceive the future and the past without ever physically leaving the present?

It's easy to get caught up in the hype – or feel slightly desperate about our stalled progress in the universe. This week on WIRED, we are looking at some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for the future of humanity in the cosmos. From the scientific explanation of our plan for the first contact with extraterrestrials to the hunt for planet Nine and the inner story of China's astonishing space ambitions, we will explore dark matter detectors and knock out our phasers to the stars. We hope you enjoy the ride.

Want to know more about the future of space exploration?

This article is part of our WIRED on Space series. From the global struggle against the way we treat the first contact with the aliens to the endless search for dark matter and the inner story of China's top secret space ambitions, we are looking deep into the world. future of humanity among the stars.

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