• Background: Base on moon in 2020
• Debate: Expensive with no set goals v. Needed for further exploration
• Country Comparison: China, Europe, Japan, Russia
• Recent Developments

Background

• In Dec 2006, NASA announced plans to construct a permanent base on the Moon. Countries and private enterprises could expand the outpost for both research and commercial purposes. The predominant reason that has emerged is to make it easier to go beyond the moon. The agency plans to start after astronauts return to the moon around 2020. Plans put the base at one of the lunar poles, to take advantage continual sunlight for solar power generation.
• NASA has not given an estimation for the cost of the program nor details for the design of the base. The assumption is that the program will fall within NASA's fixed operating budget of about $17 billion a year.
• The program also includes plans to develop rockets and spacecraft to get people to the Moon.

Debate

• Opponents have raised questions over funding a large program of human exploration without specific goals and tangible benefits. Producing helium-3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion, requires the heating 1500 times as much lunar soil.
• Proponents hope that the base will make it easier to explore space, travel between mars, and possibly extract minerals from the moon's surface. One resource that could be obtained from the Moon is helium-3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion that could possibly be used without creating residual radiation. Though scientists have not perfected a means of fusing helium-3, it is calculated that one ton of the substance would produce as much energy as $22 billion of oil.

Country Comparison

• China claims it will be able to land a man on the moon by 2022.
• The European Space Agency is planning a polar base by 2025.
• Japan has plans for a lunar base by 2030, which may or may not be a permanent installation.
• Russia plans to send a man to the moon by 2025 and establish a base there within ten years after the first landing.

Recent Developments