If you’re the new head of an agency that recently landed a spacecraft on a comet, what do you do for an encore? How about building a human settlement on the far side of the moon, as brand new ESA chief Johann-Dietrich Woerner is reportedly proposing?
In a recent interview with BBC News, Woerner said that humans should start focusing on “the future beyond the International Space Station. We should look for a smaller spacecraft in low-Earth orbit for microgravity research and I propose a Moon village on the far side of the Moon.”
Of course, he points out that such a Moon village wouldn’t just be “some houses, a church and a town hall.” Rather, “partners from all over the world” would be “contributing to this community with robotic and astronaut missions and support communication satellites.” But this lunar colony would come at a cost – namely, NASA’s plans to send a manned mission to Mars.
Moon village more logistically sound than Mars mission
According to io9, Woerner believes that the moon community should be the focus of all space agencies, including the US-based one, and that they and their international partners should focus on experimenting with longer lunar visits before turning their attention to travelling to the Red Planet or other destinations further out in the solar system.
“The far side of the Moon is very interesting because we could have telescopes looking deep into the Universe, we could do lunar science on the Moon and the international aspect is very special,” the ESA chief told BBC News. “The Americans are looking to go to Mars very soon – and I don’t see how we can do that – before going to Mars we should test what we could do on Mars on the Moon.”
Establishing a colony on the moon could serve as a stepping-stone to human exploration to Mars or other far-off destinations, Woerner explained. The technology NASA is currently working on to create a large 3D-printed base on the Red Planet, for instance, would be better off being tested on the Moon first, he said. Also, the close proximity of the moon would make it a lot easier to reach should an emergency arise at the extraterrestrial community.
Woerner sees this Moon village as being a truly international facility, involving not only NASA and ESA astronauts, but Russian cosmonauts and perhaps even Chinese taikonauts as well. At the moment, this lunar city is just a proposal, io9 said – the funding, technology and timeline are still just in the early planning stages, but it still could be a taste of things to come from the ESA.
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