Mars or the Moon?

Hey everyone, take a look at this website I made for astronomy class! As you might have guessed from the title, it considers the question of whether Mars or the Moon is the best choice for the next manned mission. I hope you like it! Comments or questions are welcome.

http://www.umich.edu/~rba

 

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Given the two choices, I'd pick the Moon, simply because we've been there before and it's close enough in case of problems. I don't see us going to Mars until we're more experienced in truly living in space long term and are ready to settle a true colony. Mars isn't a trip to take to grab a few rocks and come back. Now if we have a sudden boom in fusion propulsion to drastically cut travel time, we could do both.

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Two points in favor of the Moon I believe you left off your webpage: that building a base on the Moon would be like camping in our backyard first before heading into the woods. Secondly, you didn't mention mining Helium-3, which could in turn make traveling in the Solar system much easier.

Moon's Helium-3 Could Power Earth

 

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Thanks for the link, I'll add it to the site. As for the proximity of the moon, i thought i made that out to be a pretty obvious reason in favor of it. I don't know what more i could say regarding that without repeating myself. Thanks for taking a look at my site!

 

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I think the Z-pinch machine is the most promising candidate for
nuclear fusion, russians have actually used some small EMP-bombs to deliver the required huge electricity currents (I love the russians for their low-tec solutions)

http://whyfiles.org/167new_nukes/3.html


http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/2001/9/e-bomb/print.phtml


I vote we put all our efforts/money in establishing a solid foothold on the moon , it's our ticket to the galaxy.

 

not to mention that if we launch frequent flights to Mars from the Moon, it would be much cheaper.

 

Cool site. I agree that the moon is our best choice currently. We must take gradual steps. The problem is right now we aren't taking any steps!

 

Bush: who cares about space when we can have Iraq

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if i have chance to choose Mars&Moon i would choose Mars for manned missions so we will able to get more information about possibility of life there....

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