This year marks the 50th university of man’s landing in the moon by the Apollo 11. Since then, various space explorations have grown in numbers by different countries.
Today, we have the means and the finances to create shuttles and space crafts far beyond the efficiency and the design of Apollo 11. But with that said, is the future of civilian space travel still a far-fetched idea? Let alone the dream of one day colonizing the moon?
Space exploration has been a popular subject since the 1950s and 60s, when the space race between the United States and Russia was in full force. Today, there’s a shift of viewpoint when it comes to the desire of going to the moon as Mr. Niam Shaw, an academic and engineer who has studied space travel extensively, explained :
“Everything is about getting to Mars via the moon. That’s what’s happened. There will be more missions to the moon, but not with the same purpose as before.”
For short the dream of going to the moon is a detour towards the dream of going and colonizing Mars.
According to The Journal, one of the goals of the proposed ESA/NASA lunar base will be to set up a permanent location for research on the viability of the moon as a human habitat.
However, this base would still require visitors (most likely only astronauts from member states) to have considerable supports in place in order to survive on the moon.