Lewdog
Gold Member
The moon seems a no-brainer to me.If you are going for a single shot bragging mission, cheaper to go directly to Mars. If you are going for long term exploration, go to the moon first, and mine much of the necessary material there. And who knows what wonderous things we would find in the exploration of the moon as we went to Mars?Materials, and a much shallower gravity well.Why? What's on the Moon?
Materials..... like what?
Yeah, it has lots of oxygen in the soil, and silicon, and some iron and aluminum. How much would it cost to get these things? Probably a lot more than recycling the stuff we already use but don't need, that's for sure.
And what about lower gravity? You still need to get people from Earth to the Moon in order to then send them to Mars.
Is it easier to send people to the Moon then to Mars, or just send them to Mars in the first place?
It's closer to test out all the systems necessary for getting to and settling on Mars.
We've landed humans on the Moon, and yet when we send things to Mars they break before landing in almost all cases. Mars isn't the Moon. Testing things on the Moon doesn't mean they'll work on Mars.
I gave you the article to read about why we should go to the moon first.