Do you think there will be a base on the moon?
Whether to have a base on the moon is part of the argument that we want to go further afield and therefore have to rehearse going further afield. If you're ever going to send men to Mars, you're probably going to want to be able to support them in a remote environment like the moon. It's different from being on a space mission, so there's that reversal part; it's how people react psychologically, and what physiological effects less gravity has on their body. You're going to learn all those things from a base on the moon, and there are some scientific things you can do on the moon that haven't been done from Earth, nor can be done from Earth. If you've built telescopes on the moon, for example, you can shield yourself from the radiations on earth, particularly in the radio telescopes. You don't hear all the traffic that goes through the airwaves on earth; you can listen to other things. These people on a moon base will have jobs to do. You have to live off the land; it's incredibly expensive to take things to the moon. If you can actually process stuff there and get the fuels and materials that you want, and so forth, then you're learning for when you want to go elsewhere. I don't believe we'll stop at the moon.
