A space base on the moon? The idea of Elon Musk
Elon Musk shared an image with Instagram that portrays a spatial base on the lunar ground. An image that refers to the classic science fiction of Robert Heinlein, but which portrays a possible future not too far.
Elon Musk has recently published on his Instagram profile an image that portrays a possible lunar base – whose name is ” Moon Base Alpha “, citation of the title of a video game of 2010. To stand out is a rocket, very similar to the rockets presented the last year to announce the project of the Martian colonization.
The dream of conquering other spaces is as old as Man himself, but only in the last 50 years space conquest has become more easily imaginable and achievable – albeit with all the limits of chance. If already Jules Verne imagined a mission on the Moon in the nineteenth century, nowadays we assume the colonization of the celestial bodies of our Solar System with a much greater feasibility.
If the conquest of Mars or Venus could represent a turning point for our species and project ourselves towards a future in which we are no longer dependent on the Earth, so it is not for our satellite. Why, then, create a base on the Moon?
There are many reasons: first, the experimentation of new technologies, with the consequent creation of a test bench for the expansion beyond the earth’s orbit; secondly, to exploit the mineral riches that the Moon could hold.
The second point may seem absurd, but it could be the key to the colonization of the Solar System: the lunar gravity is about a sixth of the Earth’s, so the fuel needed to take off from our satellite is much lower than that needed on our planet.
Not to forget are the important consequences that the technologies and scientific discoveries made along the way can lead to life on Earth, in all its forms: space research has always been a very strong driving force for science and has brought many innovations in almost all scientific disciplines, with extensive practical repercussions.
Stephen Hawking states – and it is not the only one – that if we want to survive as a species, we will have to expand into space. The hope is that we will leave behind a house in order and harmony, perhaps thanks to the discoveries made to leave it.
