{"id":18288,"date":"2018-11-03T22:48:52","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T14:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/moon-direct-mars-maverick-lays-out-his-low-cost-plan-to-set-up-lunar-bases\/"},"modified":"2018-11-03T22:48:52","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T14:48:52","slug":"moon-direct-mars-maverick-lays-out-his-low-cost-plan-to-set-up-lunar-bases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/moon-direct-mars-maverick-lays-out-his-low-cost-plan-to-set-up-lunar-bases\/","title":{"rendered":"Moon Direct: Mars maverick lays out his low-cost plan to set up lunar bases"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Robert
Mars Society President Robert Zubrin provides a guided tour of future space missions during a talk at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For decades, rocket scientist Robert Zubrin has been a voice crying in the Martian wilderness. But now the president of the Mars Society is pleading the case for a cause that\u2019s much closer than the Red Planet: low-cost lunar exploration and settlement.<\/p>\n

Zubrin\u2019s lays out his latest plan, known as \u201cMoon Direct,\u201d this week in a tech journal called The New Atlantis, and he\u2019s in Seattle today to talk about it in conjunction with the Museum of Flight\u2019s SpaceExpo 2018.<\/p>\n

The expo also features demonstrations of a virtual reality project highlighting one of Zubrin\u2019s longest-running projects, the Mars Desert Research Station, a testing ground for space settlement that was built in Utah back in 2001.<\/p>\n

If Zubrin gets his way, such outposts could be built on the moon and on Mars as well, on time scales far sooner and at costs far lower than NASA projects.<\/p>\n

The problem is, Zubrin doesn\u2019t always get his way. Since the 1990s, he\u2019s advocated for a mission architecture known as Mars Direct that would first send uncrewed rockets to Mars and follow up with later crewed missions. Each mission would make use of on-site materials to produce the fuel for the return trips.<\/p>\n

The Mars Direct plan didn\u2019t get much traction, and Zubrin says that\u2019s NASA\u2019s fault. \u201cThe manned space science program has been adrift in this period,\u201d he said during a Friday night presentation at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

Now NASA is turning its attention to missions to the moon \u2014 but Zubrin is worried that, once again, NASA is taking the wrong approach. \u201cThey have a ridiculous program right now called the Deep Space Tollbooth \u2026 er, Gateway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Deep Space Gateway, also known as the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway or just the Gateway, is supposed to take shape in the mid-2020s in lunar orbit. It would serve as a platform for trips to the moon\u2019s surface and onward to Mars.<\/p>\n

Zubrin, however, said the Gateway is an unnecessary stopping point on the way to lunar settlement. \u201cIf you want to go to the moon, go to the moon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not alone in that view: During testimony to the National Space Council in June, retired astronaut Terry Virts made a similar argument against NASA\u2019s plan. \u201cGateway will only slow us down, taking time and precious dollars away from the goal of returning to the lunar surface and eventually flying to Mars.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n