Category: Countdown to the Moon

We will always have problems on earth. “The poor are always with you” It does not mean we should ignore it. We should address it. But that does not mean everything else on earth should be placed on hold. We should explore, discover, create. We have to approach life with balance.

The ice on the poles of the moon is a critical resource. We need to take steps that we preserve it. It would be bad to go to the moon, and do something to waste this resource.

The Outer Space Treaty needs to be rethought. We need to open up the economic forces to move us into space. And this means the ability for countries to claim resources and places off of earth. Yes, we need to protect the rights of countries that will come later. But we need to take a balanced approach.

Maybe we should start with giving every country so much area of the moon for so many years. They can sell their area to another country. But to claim it they must do something with it. Place a lander gives them so much area. A rover can give them more. Humans landing gives them more. A permanent base will give them even more.

Mark and I talked a good amount about the effects of quarantine and Covid19. People are learning how to work online, go to school online, connect with friends online, shop online, and even see the doctor online. This capability will accelerate many of the trends of virtual business displacing physical businesses.

We also did get to talk about NASA’s 2024 moon plans. Mark had heard about it, probably from news relaying the current administration’s goals and objectives. Mark supports exploration. He does not see much value in going back to the moon per se, but supports it for spinoffs of technology, bringing people together to work on a common goal, and how it would support further exploration. And if it were safe and affordable, Mark would go into space. But he would probably not go to Mars.

We talked a little bit about NASA’s current approach with the Human Lander of having companies be responsible for creating the lander and selling the service back to NASA. This is a different approach than what was done in the Apollo program, and it is a different approach than what the US House Science Committee wants to do. They would like to have the traditional approach of having the government define all the requirements, pay a government contractor to build it, and for the government to own it. We know that this approach leads to costly solutions that take longer to build and have very limited use.

Hopefully this new approach, which has had great success in the private sector, will produce great results that will allow for us to continue to use it.

We also talked about this project. Looking at the videos and doing an analysis is something I plan to do. I am thinking the videos will be especially interesting to see a few years from now. What were people thinking and talking about? What were their views of the 2024 moon landing? And to actually see what happens.

Rajan lives in Pakistan and is a mechanical engineer. He mainly works on design HVAC units. He had heard about NASA’s plans to go to the moon. He supports exploration. And if he could, he would go into space.

Our connection was not good. I am really looking forward to SpaceX Starlink becoming operational and being in widespread use. Starlink can allow for us to connect with people all over the world with high speed internet.

Great talk with Arfan. He is a veterinarian in Pakistan. He works for a company that produces feed for chickens.

He was aware of NASA 2024 plans to land people on the moon. He had heard about it from friends. But most of the people I have interviewed had not heard of it. And it is very possible that people might pay more attention if we were sending a dog to the moon. Of course, they might seriously ask questions about why we are doing that.

But how long would it be before we start sending pets and bigger animals than mice into space? A pet could provide much comfort to astronauts on a 6 month voyage to Mars. Also, at some point we will be creating permanently crewed facilities on the moon and on Mars and beyond. At some point those facilities will have families. And eventually those families will have pets. I am willing to wager that there will be pets in space in the next 20 years (so by 2040 we will have dogs, cats, hamsters, etc. in space).

Arfan is supportive of exploration. But we need to figure out how to live in peace with each other here on earth. How do we promote understanding. The internet can help like minded people across the world to band together for common causes. But not everyone has access to the internet. And in China the internet is censored to help support the state government. How can we have world peace if we can not have open and truthful conversations across the world.

And space is going to make it much harder for governments to control what their people see online. Starlink may be the way that we free people in China. It will be nearly impossible to monitor every roof top and to stop Starlink from every house.

In order for the people of the world to be at peace with each other, they need to be free.