Lunar Objectives: Another Star Wars?

NASA makes it a point that it announces something or the other every month. So what's the latest? Setting up a permanent base on the moon by the third decade of this century.

If you go through the "Lunar Objectives" in that page, it is immediately evident that it is highly ambitious. Lot of them sounds like science fiction to me, but yesterday's fiction is today's fact. It is just how fast we overcome the limitations and risks.

The document which is based on Lockheed Martin's list (Copy-pasted), has objectives in the following areas.

• Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Heliophysics
• Earth Observation
• Geology
• Materials Science
• Human Health
• Environmental Characterization
• Environmental Hazard Mitigation
• Operational Environment Monitoring
• Life Support & Habitat
• General Infrastructure
• Operations, Test & Verification
• Power
• Communication
• Position, Navigation & Timing
• Transportation
• Surface Mobility
• Crew Activity Support
• Lunar Resource Utilization
• Historic Preservation
• Development of Lunar Commerce
• Commercial Opportunities
• Global Partnership
• Public Engagement & Inspiration

Some of them are interesting and makes sense as well but some do not, for a simple reason that it is the best case scenario. Let me put it this way. Some of them are so future looking, even our great grand children might feel the same way as we do now. I hear arguments that the recent technological advancements have been tremendous and at this same rate, this is definitely possible, but even today we see Star Wars as a fiction.

I see the immediate requirement is fuel. The natural resources are draining pretty fast. So next nearest place is the Moon. So attack there. Like setting up the ISS, set up an off-planet drilling/mining/excavation/extraction plant taking a few decades to complete. Then use your space vehicles to transport them back to Earth. Voila! Now this sounds like achievable.

Particularly interesting for a lot of countries, nuclear-powered countries, is the million tons of Helium-3 waiting to be exploited. Everyone wants to be self-reliant, independent of the Middle-East for fuel and this is a nice achievable option.

Why is it possible? Because this is one of the few things that have happened, but at a miniscule level. Another perspective: India says that it is interested in contributing. We normally don't waste our time or money unless it is useful. Media reports and even scientists of ISRO have been commenting about the use of Helium 3 and using that to cater to India's future energy needs.

China and Japan have their own Lunar probes for 2007 while India is eyeing for 2008, provided we don't run into some major issues. UK is likely to opt out of the US plans because of its participation in the ESA. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and the race did not begin now, it began a few years back.

Even though the US and Russia have a very big headstart, the actual competition is between the other countries which are almost on the same footing. Now as citizens of this planet, we will have to wait and watch as to which country takes this seriously and tries to get a lead in this global competition. Bear in mind - As time goes by, we will not be the only ones in this race for fuel. Who knows future STAR WARS might be because of this even though "Global Partnership" is an objective.