David Brown reports in Atlantic that last week, upon leaving the president-elect office, Douglas Brinkley, a historian and conservationist, reported that Trump was very interested in a man going to the moon.
The principal arguments for a moon base involve mines and building fuel depots. Though the moon lacks the resources to ever be truly self-sustaining (?), it only takes a few days to reach from Earth. If the U.S. decides that the goal of human spaceflight should be to gather resources, the moon and its quarry of helium-3 will be a compelling target. The isotope is extremely rare on Earth because of our magnetosphere. The moon has no such protection, and for billions of years it has collected the stuff by way of an unyielding fusillade from solar winds. There is an estimated 1.1 million metric tons of helium-3 on the moon. A mere 40 tons could power the United States for a year; if scientists are able to build a fusion reactor, we could use it in our fusion nuclear power plants for centuries to come.
There are also countless scientific questions that can be answered on the lunar surface. A telescope, for example, built on the far side of the moon and thus free of Earth ionosphere and radio interference
Others claim that there are far greater opportunities existing on Mars, and that a return to the moon might delay Mars settlement by decades. Mars has carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, everything a colony needs to be self-sustaining (except help). With those ingredients, you can do everything from manufacturing plastics to cultivating the soil. In other words, you can build a base on the moon, but a civilization on Mars. Moreover, Carberry says that the red planet has never been in a better position politically, culturally, or scientifically.
We'll see.
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