IF YOU had billions to spend on sending humans into space, where would you send them? That鈥檚 the question the European Space Agency put to a team of independent experts, but it didn鈥檛 get the answer it was expecting.
In 2001, ESA unveiled an ambitious programme for space exploration centred on Mars. It plans to send a series of robotic landers to the Red Planet, followed by a manned mission by 2030. But 快猫短视频 has learned that the Human Spaceflight Vision Group, put together by ESA鈥檚 director of human space flight, Jorg Feustel-Beuchl, says the moon is Europe鈥檚 best bet.
The 22-member panel was asked to consider scenarios for human space exploration from 2005 to 2025, 鈥渢o have a proper reflection before you make up your mind and spend money in the wrong direction鈥�, says Feustel-Beuchl. 鈥淎 bit to my surprise, their proposal is to concentrate on the moon.鈥� The panel ruled out missions to Mars, as well as construction of a 鈥渟pace village鈥� in near-Earth orbit.
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鈥淢ars is the most exciting but it鈥檚 also very hard,鈥� says panel member Ian Crawford from Birkbeck College, London. To reach the Red Planet would take eight months or more. The moon is just a few days away.
And while a trip to Mars could answer profound questions, such as whether life ever existed there or whether we could make the planet habitable, Crawford says the moon has secrets too. Humans have spent only three days or so walking on its surface since the first landing in 1969, and brought back rock samples from only six sites. 鈥淭here is a huge amount of work waiting to be done,鈥� he says.
The panel鈥檚 suggestions for that work include drilling cores into the lunar crust to reveal a record of conditions in the solar system since the formation of the planets, as well as building telescopes on the far side of the moon, and simulating the effects on the human body of a trip to Mars.
China is rumoured to be heading to the moon with its fledgling space programme, and NASA, in chaos since the Columbia tragedy, is also being lobbied to go back. But will ESA take the advice? Feustel-Beuchl says he will look for ways to merge the panel鈥檚 vision with the Mars programme. A flight to the moon could be an interim step, he ventures, 鈥渂ut we are not giving up on Mars as our ultimate goal鈥�.