Dancing on the Moon

[baron_waste]

Can someone tell me why NASA is not exploring the possibility of telepresence on the Moon? They're going through all this fol-de-rol of “Returning to the Moon,” with scarcely any better reason than the first time, and it's probably never going to happen - not by NASA - but look at this.

Comments

[shockwave77598]

What makes you think otherwise? It is called Project M and it's still going as far as I know. You saw that Robonaut go up to the station? Another on a wheeled platform similar to Chariot and powered with an RPG would allow telepresence and wandering all over the moon.

Why haven't we hurried up and put it up on the moon? On what launch vehicle do you want us to do that with?

[cosmic_reverie]

There are plenty of launch vehicles to sent robots to the Moon. We use them all the time. Just look at the rovers on Mars right now - same thing can be done on the Moon. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity will launch this year on an Atlas V.

[cosmic_reverie]

NASA is working on this concept and have been working on it for many years. Robotic missions to the Moon have been going on for decades and not just by NASA. The current most probable means of returning a human presence to the Moon is to send robots (somewhat like those Sony ones but a little different) there first to build a lunar base to before humans arrive. Some of my collaborators at KSC are working on just that. Why we haven't done that yet comes down to budget and political will.