Should We Go Back to the Moon or go to Mars? Here we go again trying to get back to the moon. There are a lot of questions to be answered, such as is it a wise move? It would be good for us to set up a base there for a lot of reasons, but it looks like the trip is going to be another rip off from the old guard aerospace companies involved. What I mean is they are doing what they always do, running years behind schedule and consistently bringing up the fact they need more money for cost overruns. It seems to me the best way to go back would be on a SpaceX rocket. It would certainly be cheaper. It is claimed the Falcon Heavy the biggest SpaceX rocket to date is too small. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in use today, but not as powerful as the Saturn V which was used for the Apollo missions to the moon. The capability of the Falcon Heavy is 140,660 pounds and the NASA Space Launch System is 150,000 to 290,000 pounds. Which means if it were operational, which it is not, it could lift twice as much at maximum thrust. The Falcon Heavy however is more advanced since it can be reused and land gently using its exhaust. It makes one wonder what is going on at SpaceX, we know Musk would not just sit on his laurels. It turns out the company is building a rocket called the Starship which will be able to haul at least 220,000 pounds and it is being built with private funds. A full-up orbital test flight is scheduled for 2020 which could be sooner that NASA’s rocket. Here we are throwing many billions of dollars to develop a space launch system which uses one shot rockets which can’t soft land and which we don’t even know the final cost of. As was originally projected it would have cost 18 billion through 2017 without a price quote after that, but it is going to cost a lot more if the contractors have their way and they usually do. It would probably be cheaper, much cheaper to use the new SpaceX rocket and capsule if they are ready. If we are thinking of going to the moon might it be better to set our sights a bit higher say Mars? It is true there would have to be a lot more considerations to take into account, such as shielding from radiation, a much higher degree of dependability, the ability to carry far more supplies, a longer trip and many other things, but if we did build such a ship it could also be used to go to the moon. I often wonder why we need such a huge rocket to get to the moon. Some people say we need it to carry everything we need, but that isn’t really true, because since the moon is only a few days away we can send supply rockets and such, we don’t need to put everything in one rocket. I say build a Mars rocket and for a test flight send it to the moon. The moon rocket NASA is building is so far behind schedule anyway the delay might not even matter. I admit both the moon and Mars are interesting places and both have shown some very strange things in photos. To me one of the most annoying things would be if we were already on the moon or Mars and keeping it secret, because that would mean we are just wasting many billions of dollars to hide that fact. This is suspected by quite a few people. The moon is interesting because it is so close and can be used for many peaceful purposes and some not so peaceful. It would make an incredible astronomy base giving us photos of things we have never seen before since the moon has no atmosphere. We could build large telescopes there. There are also a lot of minerals on the moon which could be mined and if factories were built there, it would allow for easier production of some items due to the low gravity. It is also much cheaper to launch rockets from the moon to earth due to the low gravity and much cheaper because we don’t need as much fuel. There could be the ruins of lunar outposts according to some photos which show buildings like a very tall glass tower, much taller than anything on earth. This all pales in comparison to Mars if we really want to do exploring. There are so many interesting things which have been photographed, it has to wet the appetite of most of us. Imagine going to places on Mars where a pyramid has appeared in a photo, or to an area where it looks like large glass tubes form the ruins of some sort of transit system. There are people who would give anything to be able to do this and I can understand why. There are many people who think there was a past civilization on Mars which is gone. There are several theories about this. One states they came here and are us and the reason they left was Mars was losing its atmosphere. Another says they destroyed themselves in nuclear warfare. Several scientists state they have found evidence of an isotope which only appears after a nuclear explosion. Lastly there is a theory they all just flew off into the universe and some say they are watching us. I just feel we need to go to Mars and find out what is going on there. Did we not go to ancient Egypt and explore and aren’t we still doing that? Why? It is because of man’s thirst for knowledge and Mars has fanned the fire of that thirst. The planet is just too mysterious to leave alone and has been made even more so by the fact NASA has altered some of the photos taken to hide things they don’t want us to see. There has been plenty of testimony about this fact. We need a Mars ship and it may turn out it will be designed and built not by NASA, but by a private company. Blue Origin is another aerospace company and they also use reusable rockets. They are claiming they can lower the cost of space travel. The question is will NASA somehow block the private companies from going to other planets if they believe there is something to be found on them which will prove intelligent life other than ours existed or even exists now, or will they make the people sign more non-disclosure agreements? How much longer can the NASA monopoly on space travel to the moon and planets last and when is the public going to say enough to all this wasted money due to cost overruns?
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