NAS says more support and testing needed for moon, Mars exploration
USA Today: The technology storehouse supporting NASA's effort to launch astronauts back to the moon by 2020 is dependent on proper funding and clear mission goals, but lacks a comprehensive testing plan, according to a new report.
Released Thursday by the National Research Council, the 158-page report stemmed from a 10-month review of NASA's Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) which is charged with developing and providing the new technologies required for the agency's return to the moon and beyond.
Comments
As far as man's journey out into the cosmos, we have to start somewhere, and the start involves going back to the Moon and then to Mars.
Issues such as long duration space flight, and insitu Lunar and Martian resource acquisitions and utilization for long duration missions on these planetary bodies will definitely need to be studied.
While we learn to have long dwell times on the Moon and then on Mars, we will develop the technology for missions further abroad. I think the human urge to explore and travel ever further outward and our desire to expand the meaning and significance of our race will lead us to travel ever further out from Earth.
There seems in principle no limit to the distance we can project our species out into the cosmos.
Perhaps mankind needs to start thinking on so large and grand of scale so that we can unite all of humanity as never before. Some say that mankind will die out within a dozen millennia or less, but I am not so skeptical to assume such. If we choose to expand into the cosmos, just think how grateful our descendants will be, just as we are grateful to the intellectual giants, institutions, and movements that have allowed us to progress thus far.
Posted by: James M. Essig | August 26, 2008 5:51 PM