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tkdguy

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Hey, space scientists. There's this field called "history," where they do research and stuff, just like you do. Look it up! It's fun!

 

"In the 19th century, the American West was explored for decades by trappers, frontiersmen and occasional minimal expeditions sent by the central government," Thronson wrote in an essay in The Space Review, which was published online Aug. 5.

 

"Only later was the elaborate national infrastructure established to support sustained development of the West," Thronson continued. "In contrast, widely popular 'moon first, then Mars' architectures are a reverse of the historical experience of human exploration on Earth."

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That isn't a viable comparison, because most of the west is habitable much of the time. Small, individual parties could go there more or less at will.

 

By contrast, interplanetary space is not habitable by itself. You require an organized high capital effort to cross it. A better historical analogy is the era of state-sponsored exploratory activities of the 15th and 16th Centuries, trying to cross large oceanic distances to reach habitable and profitable destinations, using improvements in nautical technology to go further than earlier excursions. Once the demonstration of successful crossing had been established, only later did exploration/exploitation efforts not directly sponsored by the throne become the norm.

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Article is correct but it kind of misses the point. A moon base gets you nothing that helps you get to Mars. It isn't any closer, it doesn't have any useful resources that are easy to harvest, and it's sitting at the bottom of another gravity well. It makes far more sense to assemble your Mars mission in Earth orbit and go from there. The main thing a moon base would give is experience building an offworld base, and I'm not sure how well moonbase knowledge would apply to development of a Mars base.
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"Going farther then anything before" is not the same as "Leaving the Solar system". Considering that over later part studies are being held, it is propably not properly defined where the "Edge" of the Solar system even is. Or how an old probe with barely any sensor can detect it crossed it.
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