121
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. Spagnulo, The Geopolitics of Space Exploration, Springer Praxis Books,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7_10
10
Mars: Next Stop?
In the future we will colonize the Moon, then Mars and then, in about a hundred years, we will start traveling beyond our solar system, towards other
stars such as Alpha Centauri. Within the next five hundred years we will be
living on planets five, six, seven or eight light years apart.
Ray Bradbury
Why, after fifty years since Apollo 11, has no one stepped on the lunar soil anymore? Are spacefaring nations really investing billions of dollars to land on Mars?
And why the Moon and why Mars to begin with? The answer is often, “Because
humankind explores“.
1
But is this mentality enough?
In 2004, one year after the tragedy of the Shuttle Columbia, President George
W. Bush proposed that Congress finance the Constellation
2
project with $80 billion in order to return to the Moon by 2020. NASA received the mandate to design
a huge rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and a new spaceship, Orion, with
which to send future American astronauts into space.
In 2009, President Obama set up an Advisory Committee on the Future of the
US Space Program shortly after entering the White House. After one year of work,
the committee proposed in an extensive report to cancel Constellation and only
continue developing the SLS and Orion. Shortly before the end of his term, Obama
announced a new space program, Journey to Mars.
3
Yet this soon disappeared from
1
https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/why_we_explore_main.html.
2
A Renewed Spirit of Discovery. 2004. The President’s Vision for US Space Exploration. White
House.
3
https://www.space.com/34351-obama-says-america-will-send-people-to-mars.html.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. Spagnulo, The Geopolitics of Space Exploration, Springer Praxis Books,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7_10
10
Mars: Next Stop?
In the future we will colonize the Moon, then Mars and then, in about a hundred years, we will start traveling beyond our solar system, towards other
stars such as Alpha Centauri. Within the next five hundred years we will be
living on planets five, six, seven or eight light years apart.
Ray Bradbury
Why, after fifty years since Apollo 11, has no one stepped on the lunar soil anymore? Are spacefaring nations really investing billions of dollars to land on Mars?
And why the Moon and why Mars to begin with? The answer is often, “Because
humankind explores“.
1
But is this mentality enough?
In 2004, one year after the tragedy of the Shuttle Columbia, President George
W. Bush proposed that Congress finance the Constellation
2
project with $80 billion in order to return to the Moon by 2020. NASA received the mandate to design
a huge rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and a new spaceship, Orion, with
which to send future American astronauts into space.
In 2009, President Obama set up an Advisory Committee on the Future of the
US Space Program shortly after entering the White House. After one year of work,
the committee proposed in an extensive report to cancel Constellation and only
continue developing the SLS and Orion. Shortly before the end of his term, Obama
announced a new space program, Journey to Mars.
3
Yet this soon disappeared from
1
https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/why_we_explore_main.html.
2
A Renewed Spirit of Discovery. 2004. The President’s Vision for US Space Exploration. White
House.
3
https://www.space.com/34351-obama-says-america-will-send-people-to-mars.html.