[NetBehaviour] Small Steps Before Giant Leaps.

marc marc.garrett at furtherfield.org
Tue Dec 19 14:59:42 CET 2006


Small Steps Before Giant Leaps.

by Armchair Anarchist.

Why we should be planning to build orbital colonies before lunar colonies?

NASA caused quite a stir with a recent announcement of their intent to 
return to the moon and establish a full-time colony there. Some have 
whole-heartedly applauded the agency; some have trotted out the 
traditional 'waste of money' objections that dogged the original Apollo 
missions; still others have cautiously expressed approval, but expressed 
concern over the lack of a distinct budget for the project and its 
potential to direct funding away from other avenues of research and 
exploration.

As a life-long space advocate, I'm happy to see any push towards 
establishing a foothold for our species beyond the limits of the Earth's 
atmosphere, and I shall leave the debate on political motivations and 
budgetary restraints to those more qualified in such matters. However, I 
would contend that attempting to establish a Lunar colony would be like 
trying to run before we can walk properly, and that our efforts would be 
better directed to establishing orbital habitats, if only as a pre-amble 
to colonising other planets or satellites.

First and foremost, we already have an orbital colony (albeit a very 
small one) in the form of the ISS - and simply maintaining and expanding 
it has proved to be not only difficult in an engineering sense, but 
economically challenging too. If resources are going to be expended on 
space colonies (and I believe they most certainly should be), why not 
build on the platform that has already been established? If I remember 
the initial plans for the ISS correctly from my youth, we're far short 
of the bustling scientific outpost that we were supposed to have 
established by this point in time. Progress has been hampered by issues 
with the shuttles and rockets used to ferry materials and crew, granted; 
but it would be a mistake to assume that similar problems would not be 
attendant to a Lunar project.

more...
http://www.futurismic.com/2006/12/new_column_armchair_anarchist.html



More information about the NetBehaviour mailing list