![]() The clearest public evidence yet of this came last week, during the Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium in Huntsville, Ala. Continue pushing ahead on an uncertain, but certainly very expensive, Journey to Mars that may very well fail? Or join with European and other international partners by returning to the Moon, which has a greater chance of success? Filling gapsĭemocrats and Republicans don’t agree on much these days, but it seems that the space policy cliques within both parties would like to see a reappraisal of the Moon as a destination. This is the decision the next President will face. ![]() At the annual meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group in Columbia, Maryland on Tuesday, a principal architect of the Moon Village concept, French scientist Bernard Foing, said, “There is a synergy between the Moon and the Journey to Mars.” Foing, like Woerner, has pressed the case that neither NASA nor ESA is really ready to go to Mars, and the best place to get ready is on the surface of the Moon. The Europeans, meanwhile, have cast the Moon as a “stepping stone” to Mars. NASA’s official position now is that its astronauts will not be distracted by Moon landings on the way to Mars. Bolden has said NASA will do everything it can to support the desire of Europe, Japan and other international space agencies to land humans on the Moon, but that he must focus on Mars. They’ve made nice even as their respective heads, Bolden and Woerner, have worked toward cross purposes. ![]() The underlying tensionĪt present, NASA and ESA have a great relationship. And when a new president faces the question of a destination for NASA’s human spaceflight program, he or she may well favor Woerner’s vision. His choice for NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, will likely follow him out the door. President Obama, who famously dismissed the the Moon by saying “we’ve been there before,” leaves office in January. Further Reading Why Obama’s “giant leap to Mars” is more of a bunny hop right nowīut time, and the inescapable challenge of sending humans to Mars, may be on Woerner’s side.
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