Returning to the moon and the motives behind it

Fifty years ago, humans set foot on the moon. It was, and still is, the most incredible thing to have done and unlike the vast majority of things we smart apes do, makes me proud to be a human.

I don’t have anything controversial or even particularly insightful to say about this achievement 50 years ago today. Everyone involved is an absolute hero and until we go back and build a base and/or put a human on Mars, it will remain, for me, humanity’s greatest achievement. It is remarkable that we achieved this back then and saddening that we have not been back since Apollo 17.

(I have addressed conspiracy idiots before but as they don’t read anything that doesn’t come from within their own conspiracy bubble, there is no point. mentioning it here.)

Happily, things are about to change with numerous nations, and groups of nations, all planning a jaunt there in the near future. And it is not that we haven’t been back at all – our drones and robots have been wandering around up there for a while, doing experiments and generally having robotic fun. A great example is the impressive recent Chinese mission where a lander successfully grew crops on the dark side of the moon. For a bit.

There was a great article in the New Scientist recently where a concern was voiced about our motives regarding future space exploration and in particular, trips to the moon. It stressed how we should be upfront about what we want to do. Science, political one-upmanship, or simply to mine the crap out of it for money? I can confidently predict that yes, those reasons will be why. A blend of all three that everyone will claim is mostly for science. Which is fine, I guess. We went there before for political reasons and did a lot of science as a result.

Ideally, it would be like the South Pole – international and a place where scientists can learn about stuff and no natural resources are allowed to be exploited. So the polar opposite of what is happening at the North Pole. I think nation states might feel obliged to benefit its people and maybe even others but Agencies like NASA, ESA and their equivalents would be ideal. Then come the capitalists. I would be excited to have a moon base but disappointed if it is filled by minimum wage astronauts working to make someone like Bezos even richer. Musk and Branson might do it just for the kudos and to see if it can be done (while turning a small profit) and that’s good too I guess.

As I said when I started, I am not trying to make too much of a point. This moment in time should be all about patting ourselves on the back for generally being awesome, smart and having a few people who are brave as hell backed up by others who are smart as hell. Landing on the moon was absolutely amazing and whatever the motivation, we should go back. We should also be expanding into space generally, if only to increase the odds of humanity surviving come the apocalypse. As a species, especially when we turn to science and a quest for knowledge (actually the same thing), we are great. Hopefully as we progress we will remain on the good side of our balancing act between advancement/knowledge and greed/self-destruction. If things go wrong, it will be nice to have an escape. Roll on the next 50 years!