Space matters

Russia is planning to put a man on the Moon, and anyone can apply to join the crew. The Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, may have suffered some humiliating setbacks in recent months, but it’s hitting back by aiming even higher.

A reusable, electrically propelled spacecraft would open up vast realms of deep space to human exploration. This interactive provides a walkthrough of the proposal laid out by Damon Landau and Nathan J. Strange in "This Way to Mars", an article in the December 2011 issue of Scientific American.

NASA has begun drafting guidelines to protect the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 landing sites, listing them as off-limits, and including ground-travel buffers and no-fly zones to avoid spraying rocket exhaust or dust onto aging, but historic, equipment.

Humans to Venus? To Paul D. Spudis, "the latest proposed destination for human space missions illustrates the essential hollowness of the current direction of the US civil space program."

"Expansion of the human economy over this century will be key to the maintenance of a technological civilization. Without the capabilities that only such a civilization affords, the immediate human future could turn unimaginably dark. Human spaceflight is one tool we can use to allow people to see the possibility of a better future, to expand our technological base, to develop additional resources by seeking cooperation and writing new law, and ultimately to see ourselves in a new way.

That’s why humans need to fly in space."

Retour en vidéo sur le projet de base lunaire de cette entreprise, lors d'une conférence TED présentée par Bill Stone, le 27 octobre 2011.

Although treaties forbid ownership, the powerful nation would have little resistance when laying claim to lunar resources.

Malheureusement, le titre est un peu racoleur. Dès le chapô, on comprend qu'il s'agit de vues sur les ressources, ce qui ne pose pas les mêmes problèmes en droit.