Taking a walk on our closest neighbor

The Moon... our celestial neighbor and sibling that fueled dreams of exploration, adventure and mystery. Since the Apollo program mankind only sent robotic explorers to the Moon and human spaceflight remained in low-Earth orbit, some arguing that it was not economical feasible and worth the investment in such projects (e.g. going back to the Moon).

As time passed, technology advanced and overcome old barriers, thus bringing new hope for a lost dream... people and companies started looking again towards the Moon.

Why bother going back?

Well... I'll try to point out a couple of reasons why we (as a species) should take this challenging endeavor:

• Economical
• 
  to harvest Helium 3 (He-3) that can be used in fusion reactors, there has been breakthroughs recently with this type of technology. To get a sense of how much energy this resource can produce, imagine that scientist estimate that 30~40 tonnes of Helium 3 could power USA for a whole year.
• mine rare metals that are used in numerous industries
• turism
• Exploration
• to build an outpost (on the lunar surface or orbit) from where missions towards outer planets can be launched
• to build a colony, where humans can learn to survive in space (let's not forget that we're getting cramped here on Earth...), produce supplies and construct equipment/vehicles for interplanetary spaceflight and conduct research.
• Last but not least, I think that without our "lust" for adventure we wouldn't have discovered so many things, and it would be a true sin to stop now.

I for one, think that the Moon represents the stepping stone for our civilization. I'm really passionate about this subject (who wouldn't like to take a vacation on the moon?) and I'll write more in my future posts about the emerging technologies and programs that will help achieve this dream (anyway... there are to many things to cover about this subject...).