are we getting a hand of ourselves here? like pay more attention to a return to the moon.
Yes.
I'm a huge advocate of human Mars missions, but we haven't even flown a human out of low earth orbit, let lone gone to or landed on the moon for 46 years.
Build a permanent moon base first and learn how to live there to iron out major bugs.
Sure, continue to do Mars mission and land and put hardware etc there, that's cool.
Who was it who said recently (Neil Tyson maybe?), send humans to Mars is cool, but what do you do when you get there?
At least with the moon people go, spend a few weeks or months and come back in a few days. Fun stuff, gets people excited about space travel again, and proves some valuable technology. And you can do good science on the moon too.
I agree with this point of view 100%, however, this needs to be done by private companies. Elon Musk is taking on Mars, which I think is as risky as it gets. NASA, however, I would only want them to continue the small missions that is already slated and to keep tax money out of the mix because when you get the US government involved, it gets to be a political football and nothing good will come of it. I was around in the '60s during the push to go to the moon and even I understood at the time, being a young child, that this was a political race with the USSR to gain dominance in space. The public did not lose interest in the moon missions, politics killed the space program for reasons that I don't have the time or space to talk about.
With that said, Elon Musk is determined to go to Mars for reasons of his own, and I can't argue with that. I look forward to seeing Mars get explored with manned missions and, yes, eventually a small scientific colony/base where this could be a jump off point for further, deeper space exploration can occur. As far as the comment that man can't live for extended periods in space due to zero gravity, people have been living at the International Space Station for extended periods of over 6 months for decades in zero G.
The moon is an ideal base BECAUSE of its' low gravity which means that the amount of fuel to leave the moon is much less than on Earth, and Mars. This could be a jump off point to go to Mars. Also, I believe there are more things to possible discover on the moon that may have benefits to us on earth; i.e. labs can grow things in low gravity that are not possible on earth. The other possibility is to find some material or mineral that does not exist on earth that could be beneficial, who knows since we have not really explored the moon much other than the few short missions in the early '70s.
The moon is ~ 245,000 miles from earth and a ship traveling at 25-30,000 mph, which is doable with our current technology, could get there in less than a day if there is a ship ready to go on earth in the instance that a pickup is needed for medical emergencies. Having medical personelle on the moon would be wise as well, if we are to establish a base with people living there for extended times.
If private individuals or companies are going to take on the role of space exploration, it won't be any different from the reasons that have been done on earth since man has been alive. There will be some reward for doing so other than simple scientific knowledge such as a new yet undiscovered mineral/substance that has a value to man (unobtainium). The initial trips will be more of this type of 'treasure hunting' than exploring, the exploration is a side effect of the latter.
Ok, apologize for the rant, just my 2 cents...