Mond oder Mars? Die Zukunft der NASA an einem Scheideweg unter Trump | Ist die NASA immer noch Moonbound oder wird der nächste riesige Sprung direkt zum Mars überspringen?
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-moon-mars-nasa-future-crossroads.html
Mond oder Mars? Die Zukunft der NASA an einem Scheideweg unter Trump | Ist die NASA immer noch Moonbound oder wird der nächste riesige Sprung direkt zum Mars überspringen?
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-moon-mars-nasa-future-crossroads.html
38 Kommentare
Isn’t it likely that to get to Mars, it would be incredibly easier to start with the moon? Lower gravity and escape velocity, etc
„We’re going to Mars!“
„We’re going to an asteroid!“
„We’re going to the Moon!“
„We’re going to Mars!“
FFS, maybe NASA needs to not be yanked in different directions based purely on partisan divisiveness.
We cant skip to Mars without a foothold on the moon. But as if right now, Mars would be a one way trip. I suggest Trump and Musk be the first humans to go there
This is a no brainer. Our astronauts need to test out the equipment that will be used on Mars in an environment closer to Mars’ than they will find on Earth. Mars’ atmosphere is so thin it’s closer to vacuum than Earth’s. Better to do the testing from a location that means a three day trip home at basically a moments notice (relatively speaking) instead of having to hold out for the next launch window from Mars.
Nasa will be relegated to satellite and rover launches for observation. It’s proven that mismanaged government funding is the roadblock. Hence why space exploration is becoming more and more privatized.
Both are a complete waste of money. Focus on earth.
The emphasis on Mars is simply a way for Musk to get his hands on trillions of dollars of Federal Government money. It’s a scam
Yeah im in serious doubt these moon or mars missions survive the next 4 years.
NASA is already facing budget cuts, and with the economic outlook and insane tariff based policies of the USA they won’t have the money for NASA in 4 years
I sure hope we stay focused on the moon. Excellent technological testbed, and has a huge potential for an industrial foothold for Earth to expand into space. It’s basically a giant asteroid 30x more massive than the entire asteroid belt, with a surface rich in industrial materials (42% 0xygen, 20% silicon, 20% combination of iron and aluminum), and free of atmosphere so that mass drivers can be used to cheaply deliver supplies to orbit, Earth, and even Mars and Venus.
At under 1.5kWh/kg to deliver payloads to anywhere on Earth it could even take a big bite out of bulk-material mining on Earth.
Meanwhile Mars is completely worthless to Earth. Probably the most hospitable place in the solar system to homestead, but with no expected benefits to Earth, why should people staying here pay for it. The only thing of potential value is discovering alien life – and that becomes much more difficult once we colonize it with a bunch of humans and our microbes, masking any native bio-signatures beneath those of the colonizers.
You don’t „skip straight to Mars“ if you have an invaluable Moon on your doorstep.
There is water in the Moon. All you need is a base with solar panels and you can make hydrogen + oxygen from electrolysis.
That is the best rocket fuel gas station any space exploring species can ask for.
A refueling base on the moon would make Mars missions 10x easier, with shorter trip times, more cargo capacity and less total cost.
Skipping the moon would be as dumb as it gets.
There is no question, Mars offers no benefits over the moon. They are both packed full of valuable resources, but Mars actually presents significantly more challenges, such as duration of trip (and the negative effects it will have on the human body, cancer etc). Transport costs will be significantly more. No rescue missions, if there is a serious problem that occurs on Mars, the people there will be completely alone, with no chance of rescue. The Moon and Mars both have microgravity compared to Earth l, it is extremely likely that will have a serious impact on astronauts health with long term exposure, once again the moon is close and so crew rotation can keep missions to within a safe duration.
The moon is circa 238 thousand miles from earth (at all times). Mars is 33.9 million miles at closest approach, 140 million miles on average and 249 million miles at farthest distance.
Mars is a dead rock with no real value. The moon at least has some potential value in h3, but to what extent?
Going to mars seems like a waste to me. If Elon wants to go to Mars, then let him fund it on his dime. The American people fund all of his projects that are space related. Not sure why he gets to pick and choose.
Best step towards Mars would be to build the 2033 Mars-Venus fly by using the Gateway tech to test aong duration deep space mission.
Mars is a suicide mission. A very depressing one at that. We do not at all have the technical problems solved to make life there possible. Want to be one of the first corpses on another planet?
We won’t fund medical research or Medicaid, we won’t pay to keep starving people alive, and we won’t spend money to curb the effects of global warming but we’ll send people to the moon.
Humans have only been in Lunar orbit just a handful of times. We need to get some better idea of what the impacts are being outside the Van Allen Belts before we start to travel far beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
I am not eager to send people on one way trips to Mars especially if we don’t have proper shielding for them to even get there alive.
If dumb ass wants to send his employees on a one way trip to Mars, so be it, but I don’t want my tax dollars going to pay families of people he lost because he didn’t think things through.
Colonizing Mars is a pipedream. Focus should be on the moon, but not as a means to get to Mars.
There is no plan to get crew to Mars. Period. There is at least a decade of stuff to research before that plan can be drawn up.
This whole thing is about cancelling SLS/Orion/ISS and science to pump the money into SpaceX, with a plan as far down the road as possible.
You don’t need the moon, it takes one extra Starship refueling in terms of pure math to get from the Earth to Mars than it does from Earth to Moon with Starship.
You’re not going to find or build all the manufacturing you need on the moon, so that’s actually cost effective to send that stuff from the moon to Mars.
You’re better off spending all that resource money and fuel in building infrastructure on the moon to just build a spaceship in orbit, and then go from Earth orbit to Mars.
There are other reasons to have a moon base, but it does not make getting to Mars easier or cheaper. Many people may not realize this, but one of the reasons the ISS was built was because it was sold on the fact that we need a space station to get to Mars. Clearly that didn’t help.
The dumber answer is Mars first, so that’s probably going to be the order.
The first nation with bases or stations on the moon and the Lagrange points will have an unassailable advantage over its peers. It’s the ultimate high ground and I hope the US realizes this before it’s too late. NASA should have a laser focus on building out infrastructure on all of these points as soon as possible.
Mars is too far away and too insignificant with our current technology. It would be a strategic waste to skip to there first when the aforementioned spots will be gatekeepers to the rest of the solar system.
What we really need is a space-station at the Lagrange point. A fleet of ferries should be established to run from earth orbit to the Lagrange point. From there we can move to the Moon and Mars.
Yes we will ‘steer’ our attention and dollars there.
Will it get us there? No
Suicide no return missions don’t count.
Mars is not going to happen. This is just propaganda. People screaming about going to mars are just doing it for money. IT IS A GRIFT. Best case scenario is they send some terminally ill person in the direction of Mars and “lose contact” with the craft after several months. You don’t need an advanced degree to figure this out. Near earth orbit and deep space are two entirely different environments.
I don’t understand, why are we not building infrastructure on the moon with moon bases for permanent dwellings on the moon under the surface to protect from radiation and take advantage of the increased gravity closer to the core?
Then simply build what we need for a mars mission after such a moon base is completed?
This is mostly why Elon is hanging on to trump. He expects to hobble or outright kill NASA, take their resources, and only build the structures in orbit needed for his manned Mars mission.
Probably reason #1 why there should be no billionaires.
A Mars mission would be the ultimate waste of funds, how will DOGE explain it away?
It is immensely sad how many people in this sub are so confidently incorrect about damn near everything, and how many base their incorrect opinions on blindly opposing anything the people they don’t like support.
I’ve been saying this from the start. It makes absolutely no sense to skip development of a base on the Moon and go straight for Mars. It’s reckless and dangerous. It’s the pipe dream of armchair scientist who just personally want to see Mars colonized before they die. Space is incomprehensibly difficult to navigate for the layman to truly understand. If it were that easy and feasible to do we’d be working on asteroid mining by now and Upper Class citizens would be taking tourist visits to Mars.
If space colonization is going to start it NEEDS to start on the Moon. Working on building a base of operations on the Moon that can then be used as the new launch pad to launch rockets from consistently is what needs to be done first. The moon should be almost fully developed before even thinking about settling bases/colonies on Mars.
And even then our grandkids will be lucky to witness their kids being the ones setting up a Mars colony. We’re not going to witness it and I’m sorry if that ruins your dreams but that’s the reality of it. Space is fucking dangerous. It’s not our playground to do what we want with. It will absolutely destroy our astronauts as thoughtless as we destroy bacteria with hand sanitizer.
This very simple – this administration care what happen within term of it. And Moon can, Mars – can not
Just watched a documentary about how hard it is to land on the moon. Saw another one recently about the dangers of extended space travel. Radiation, mostly, but also the psychological ramifications.
I don’t mean to be mean, but anyone who’s stupid enough to think that a trip to Mars is possible probably also thinks that the entire US will stand by while he tries to gut the government for a tax break.
Could happen, probably won’t. Will probably end in disaster.
Why not both? We have the resources, we have the manpower.
Launch Elon to Mars asap.
Launch Elon to Mars asap.
Launch Elon to Mars asap.
We’re not gonna go to Mars for another 30 years minimum. If that.
If Congress increases NASA’s budget by 30% it could do both!
How about we actually accomplish what we planned to do with the last 10+ years of funding? It’s tiring to see us waffle back and forth spending tons of money and failing to accomplish either moon or mars.
I’m surprised that the old fuck isn’t trying to get to the moon. I swear he thinks it’s still 1980
America won’t last long enough for humans to leave the planet through NASA.