What will space exploration look like in 2069, a century after the first moon landing? In the fifth and final episode of podcast series, To the moon and beyond, we speak to space scientists about the missions they are dreaming about and planning for the future.

In episode four we heard about plans to establish a base on the moon, potentially mining the lunar surface for minerals and even water that could be turned into rocket fuel. Episode five finds out what happens when this is built. How could a base on the moon help us travel to other parts of the solar system? And where should we go? These are some of the questions we investigate.

We start by finding out why the moon is seen as such a great place from which to launch missions further into space. Ultimately it’s down to the fact that the hardest part of any space journey is getting a rocket out of Earth’s gravity.

Alex Ellery, an associate professor of Space Robotics and Space Technology at Carleton University in Canada, explains the different ways it’s possible to exploit the moon’s weak gravity. One way is to build a new space station that orbits the moon – something that NASA and other international space stations are already planning.

Another way is to build a base on the moon’s surface using lunar resources. This would be much more ambitious but could ultimately be safer and more sustainable, according to Ellery:


In fact, there is a veritable host of useful stuff on the moon. Iron, aluminium, titanium, silicon, ceramics, reagents, regolith gases of various kinds, and so on, from which it is possible to build an entire infrastructure and to do this robotically. This is how we get the true value of using the moon as a stepping stone towards Mars and elsewhere.


While different people have different views about when we’ll actually make it back to the moon and how, most academics we’ve spoken to are confident it will happen. Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space sciences at the Open University in the UK, told us where she would go, once a moon base is set up. 

For her, it’s all about travelling to the places where life might be. This could be Mars, Jupiter’s moon, Europa, or Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. Europa and Enceladus are unusual in the sense that they have huge internal liquid oceans buried under a thick sheet of ice – heated by the gravitational tug of the huge planets they orbit. Grady says:


If I had to really pick one place where I thought there was definitely going to be life – a living life – I would say Europa. Because Europa has had all those building blocks, it’s had all the ingredients, it’s had plenty of time. I imagine that the ocean floor, Europa’s ocean floor must be a relatively stable environment [for life to develop].


Grady also explains how scientists would go about finding life on another planet – when that life is probably not going to be visible aliens walking around above ground. In cold places like M

To the moon and beyond 5: What space exploration will look like in 2069

It’s been 47 years since the last time a man stepped on the moon, and yet now a host of countries – from the US, to Russia and China – are racing to send astronauts back there, and set up base. 

In the fourth episode of The Conversation’s To the moon and beyond podcast, we delve into why there’s a renewed drive to put humans back on the surface of the moon. What’s there to go back for? And what are the practical, legal and ethical questions facing those who want to set up a base there – and potentially start mining the moon. 

We find out that while no one country owns the moon – a principle set out in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 – the question of who owns the resources on the moon is more complicated. Tanja Masson-Zwaan, an assistant professor of space law at Leiden University in The Netherlands, explains that another international agreement, the Moon Treaty, which entered into force in 1984, has only been ratified by 18 countries, and by none of the major space powers. The big sticking point is the principle that the moon and its natural resources are the “common heritage of mankind” – the exact meaning of which is unclear. 


Does it mean that everything that a company could have in profits from exploiting resources in outer space has to be split among all countries? What exactly it means is unclear and that is why many states don’t don’t like it and will not ratify it.


Masson-Zwaan says that while a new international treaty is unlikely, a new set of guidelines are needed to govern exploitation of the moon’s resources. 

Part of the attraction of going back lies in what’s under the moon’s dusty surface. Katherine Joy, a Royal Society university research fellow at the University of Manchester in the UK, explains some of the elements that could potentially be found on the moon – from water and oxygen to Helium 3 – and what they could be used for. 


The great question we have next is not so much in terms of how can we go to mine the moon but first of all we need to understand the potential resources and where they’re located, how they’re accessible and we need to also develop the technology to be able to detect them and extract them to make them into usable products.


She explains that she’d love to get her hands on a piece of water ice from the moon’s surface back in her lab – but that this might not be so simple as no mission so far has plans to bring one back cryogenically. 

But even if a country or company could overcome the many technical hurdles of mining on the moon, there’s no global police force able to punish those breaking any new rules. We asked Frans von der Dunk, professor of space law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US, whether he could envisage a space war breaking out and what it might look like. 


It will probably start first on the level of a trade war … but that can already do a lot of damage to everyone around. But if things further escalate

To the moon and beyond 4: What's the point of going back to the moon?

From Algeria to Vietnam, there are 72 countries with some sort of space programme. And the new space race involves a number of private companies too, that are becoming increasingly crucial to national missions.

In the third episode of To the moon and beyond, we find out who some of the key players are in this new space race, what they are competing for and what winning looks like. 

Space exploration has long been driven by competition. As we heard in the first episode of this podcast series, the success of NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon was driven by the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. After the US had won this space race, they soon stopped sending manned missions to the moon because of the cost and the risks involved.

But, for all the similarities with 50 years ago, John Horack, who holds the Neil Armstrong chair in aerospace policy at Ohio State University in the US, says today is very different. 


There are still significant national prestige and pride factors associated with spaceflight. But there are many many things going on in space that have absolutely nothing to do with national prestige. They’re about economics. They’re about philanthropic activities, they’re about testing new business models. So it’s less of a race and more of an explosion.





            
            
              
              
            
          

MORE ON THE MOON AND BEYOND
Join us as we delve into the last 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years to come. From Neil Armstrong’s historic first step onto the lunar surface to present-day plans to use the moon as a launchpad to Mars, hear from academic experts who’ve dedicated their lives to studying the wonders of space.



Still, only three countries have successfully sent astronauts into space: Russia, the US and China. And one of the most exciting developments in space exploration, which took place earlier this year, was China’s successful Chang’e 4 mission. In January 2019, Chang’e 4 made a soft landing on the mysterious far side of the moon – the first time this has been done.

Yang Gao, professor of space autonomous systems at the University of Surrey, tells us why this was a remarkable feat of engineering. She also explains some of China’s plans to conduct scientific research on this south side of the moon – where there is evidence of an abundance of hydrogen and water ice.


These are really very exciting for us because those resources can potentially provide in the future the life support for human habitation or long-term existence on the moon, instead of us transporting those resources from Earth.


China’s success seems to have put rocket boosters under the US government’s space plans. Donald Trump’s administration has talked a lot about increasing NASA’s budget in order to send a manned mission to the moon in the next five years, looking to use it as a base for exploring Mars and beyond.

As well as new countries getting involv

To the moon and beyond 3: The new space race and what winning it looks like

In the second episode of The Conversation’s To the moon and beyond podcast series, we take a look at the impact going to the moon had on humanity – and why it generated so many conspiracy theories. 

While an estimated half a billion people tuned in to watch the moon landings on television in late July 1969, what about those who didn’t have access to one? We hear from Keith Gottschalk, a political scientist at the University of the Western Cape, who explains what it was like to learn about the moon landings in apartheid South Africa – one of the few countries in the world where people couldn’t watch the moon landings. 


The apartheid regime banned TV so we would have seen the newspaper posters tied up to all the lampposts on the road and the SABC radio (South African Broadcasting Corporation) – in those days the apartheid regime banned all radios except the SABC – would have broadcast extracts.


Gottschalk also explains how the news that the US had beaten the Soviet Union to the lunar surface was met in a country where Cold War rivalry was central to politics and foreign affairs.  

We also hear from Alice Gorman, senior lecturer in archaeology and space studies, at Flinders University in Australia. She studies the heritage of what’s been left by humans on the moon’s surface and what it means for people back on Earth. She laments what was lost when astronauts stopped going to the moon in 1972. 


We lost a tradition. We lost the continuity of technologies and cultures that enable people to survive on other planets. So now we’re kind of reinventing those again.


Gorman tells us why she thinks the Apollo 11 sites could become heritage sites for future generations of visitors to the moon. To find out more about her work as a space archaeologist, researching the various debris that humans have left in space, you can also read a write-up of Gorman’s interview with Conversation science editor Sarah Keenihan here.




            
            
              
              
            
          

MORE ON THE MOON AND BEYOND
Join us as we delve into the last 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years to come. From Neil Armstrong’s historic first step onto the lunar surface to present-day plans to use the moon as a launchpad to Mars, hear from academic experts who’ve dedicated their lives to studying the wonders of space.



One of the enduring legacies of the moon landings has been the conspiracy theories it generated, which claim that the Apollo missions were all a hoax orchestrated by the US government. Peter Knight, a professor of American studies and an expert in conspiracy theories at the University of Manchester in the UK, explains the cultural moment in which these sprang up in the mid 1970s. 


The immediate context that we need to think about is the Vietnam War and a sense of disillusionment with the official version of events and, in effect, the lies that Americans felt their government had been telli

To the moon and beyond 2: how humanity reacted to the moon landing and why it led to conspiracy theories

blank Welcome to the first episode of To the moon and beyond, a brand new global podcast series from The Conversation marking 50 years since the first moon landing in July 1969. 

Humanity has the moon landings to thank for a lot. But what did we actually learn from exploring the lunar surface? Why did we stop going there after just a few short years? And when – and who – will be going back next?

In this first episode, Bonnie J. Dunbar, a retired NASA astronaut who is now a professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University, explains what it’s like being in space. 


I think the closest that anyone can actually get to experience it on the ground here on Earth is if you’re in an IMAX theatre in the front row or close to the front row with surround sound. But that doesn’t capture everything, that only captures part of the visual. It doesn’t capture being weightless. It doesn’t capture actually orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes. 


Dunbar also explains how a mission to the moon would be done differently today, with communications being far more efficient, for example. 

But despite the technological progress we’ve made over the past few decades, humans haven’t actually been back to the the moon since 1972, with Apollo 17. John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former member of the NASA Advisory Council, explains why NASA stopped sending astronauts to the moon and why no other country has since.


By defining Apollo as a race to the moon, once you win the race there is no strong urge or compelling reason to continue to race. You’ve already won. And there was that sense not only within NASA and within the White House but in the general public.





            
            
              
              
            
          

MORE ON THE MOON AND BEYOND
Join us as we delve into the last 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years to come. From Neil Armstrong’s historic first step onto the lunar surface to present-day plans to use the moon as a launchpad to Mars, hear from academic experts who’ve dedicated their lives to studying the wonders of space.



Logsdon explains that after a few years of watching the Apollo missions, TV audiences weren’t tuning into the moon landings in large numbers, and the danger of the missions meant NASA chose to quit while it was ahead. 

The Apollo missions were never really about science, according to Logsdon. But the trips to the lunar surface nevertheless did a lot to help scientists understand the moon’s geology. Daniel Brown, associate professor of astronomy and science communication at Nottingham Trent University, explains how going to the moon helped answer questions about where the moon’s craters came from. He also talks us through how some of the technological advances sparked by the race to the moon in the 1960s helped humanity back on Earth – and busts some myths about inventions that came out

To the moon and beyond 1: What we learned from landing on the moon and why we stopped going

It’s been 50 years since Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind by becoming the first person to set foot on the lunar surface. While the historic event was followed by six further crewed missions – five of which landed – nobody has been back to the moon since the astronauts of Apollo 17 bid their goodbyes in 1972.

A growing number of countries and private companies have since started exploring the moon with robotic spacecraft and landers, with China recently becoming the first country to land a rover on the far side of the moon. These players are now in a new space race to put people back on the moon in the next few years. But who will be first and where will it all take us?  

These are some of the questions we’ll explore in To the moon and beyond – a five part global podcast series created by the different editions of The Conversation around the world. We’ll investigate the past 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years ahead of us by talking to academic experts across the world, ranging from space scientists and psychologists to historians, lawyers and futurists.

Starting in 1969, we’ll speak to an astronaut-turned-academic about what it must have been like for Armstrong to take that first small step. And we’ll find out from historians why we suddenly stopped sending people to the moon in 1972. We’ll also discover what impact the moon landings have had on humanity and why they have generated so many conspiracy theories. 

We’ll then travel all the way to 2069, looking at plans to use the moon as a staging post for future space exploration. This could take humans as far as Mars and the habitable icy moons surrounding the gas giant planets. 

The first episode will launch on July 3. You can listen via The Conversation, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from by hitting the “Listen and Subscribe” button at the top of this page.  




            
            
              
              
            
          

MORE ON THE MOON AND BEYOND
Join us as we delve into the last 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years to come. From Neil Armstrong’s historic first step onto the lunar surface to present-day plans to use the moon as a launchpad to Mars, hear from academic experts who’ve dedicated their lives to studying the wonders of space.



Credits:

To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.

Picture source: Buzz Aldrin on the moon, NASA

Music: Even when we fall by Philipp Weigl, via Free Music Archive

News archive: China lands a rover on the far side of the moon, CBS News

Apollo 11 and 17 audio from NASA
Miriam Frankel works for The Conversation.Martin Archer receives funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

To the moon and beyond

To the moon and beyond

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