The Peregrine Lunar Mission

 

Lori Garver Questioned Astronauts about NASA's Next Destination?

In a fascinating oped in the Huffington Post, former astronaut, Clayton Anderson, reports that  Lori Garver had a private meeting with the Astronaut Corp. when she was still the  Associate Administrator for NASA Spaceflight-- and asked the astronauts what NASA's next destination should be:

"While I was still an astronaut, and an astronaut veteran at that, then Associate Administrator for spaceflight Lori Garver came to speak to the Astronaut Corps. A private meeting, just Ms. Garver and an attentive group of type A personalities, I would venture to guess there were about 40-45 of us "space fliers" seated in the room. A bit of a "rah, rah" meeting, touting NASA's work in the world of commercial spaceflight (and I think commercial spaceflight is a good thing, but that's another op-ed!), she asked us all a significant question.

After some perfunctory remarks, she asked us to raise our hands if "we thought that Mars should be our next destination?" Three astronauts raised their hands.

Next, she offered the question again, but this time replacing the Red Planet with the option of an asteroid as our next destination. No one... that's right, no one, raised a hand.

When she finally asked us about our near-neighbor the moon, every astronaut, save the three that voted for Mars, raised their hands.

 I found this interesting. The majority of the astronaut corps, the people that actually do the space flying, agreed with me --that the moon should be our next destination." Clayton Anderson.

You can read the rest of Clayton Anderson's oped at the Huffington Post at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clayton-anderson/where-do-we-go-from-here_3_b_4495029.html

Marcel F. Williams

More  Blogs about Lori Garver: 

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How Lori Garver misled about '50 year old' Space Launch System Technology

Huntsville-designed Space Launch System should be killed, former NASA No. 2 Lori Garver says

A Chinese Lunar Scientist's Views on the Future of the Moon

"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." , Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)


Global Times reporter Yu Jincui interviewed Ouyang Ziyuan (Ouyang), a senior consultant at China's lunar exploration program:

"Strictly speaking, China is a developing country. Some people argue that rather than explore the moon, we should concentrate on dealing with problems on Earth. It is understandable.

However, from a broader development perspective, we should not only be engaged in lunar exploration, but also step up our pace.

The lunar exploration program covers many high-tech fields. It is very scientifically demanding, which stimulates the technological upgrades and innovations.

Lunar exploration is a threshold for exploring deep space and remote space, and it could provide the basic experience for eventually exploring other planets. There are unimaginable abundant natural resources on the moon, such as rare earths, or uranium and titanium ores. The titanium ore reserve on the moon is the same size as the whole of China.

Although we are not able to exploit these resources due to the extremely high cost and technological limitations, as scientists, we have the responsibility to prove the existence of these resources and inform the people.

The moon has a very huge energy reserve. Japanese scientists recently came up with a design idea that if humanity could build a moon belt for solar power generation and transmitting energy back to the earth, human energy needs could be permanently satisfied.

Since the 1990s, a total of nine lunar probes have been launched into space, two from China (including the newly launched Chang'e-2 satellite), three from the US, one from Europe, two from Japan, and one from India.

The world is witnessing the climax of the second round of lunar exploration. All the countries involved are expecting to discover more comprehensive and concrete knowledge about the moon.

If China doesn't explore the moon, we will have no say in international lunar exploration and can't safeguard our proper rights and interests.

The contribution of the Apollo project of the US is amazing. According to one calculation, the input-output ratio is 1:14. It drove the development of high-tech worldwide and made the US a leader in the high-tech field for almost 20 years.

China's lunar exploration program is nowhere near as big as Apollo project in size, but it could also make great contributions in promoting technological improvements, scientific progress and talents cultivation.

China should not stay in the cradle of the Earth forever. The Chinese people should make contributions to the human development in the field of space exploration."

Reference:

China has no desire for new space race

Augustine Commission Recommends that NASA Focus on Space Colonization