Since the last manned lunar mission, Apollo 17 in 1972, mankind has taken one giant leap backward.
Neither the United States nor any other country currently has the means to send a manned mission to the moon, said Michael J. Drake, director of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
Detailed designs of the Saturn V rocket no longer exist, Drake said. And even if they were recovered, they'd be obsolete because they wouldn't meet current safety standards — which the U.S. deemed acceptable in the 1960s as it scurried to beat the Soviets to the moon.
The designs would also be too archaic to work with modern computers and communications systems.
"Technology has moved on," Drake said.
Thus, we as a people are stranded on Earth, able only to dream about returning to the moon, or eventually going to Mars. Drake said the nominal 2020 goal of a lunar return is unrealistic because NASA is underfunded. He projects that a possible visit to Mars is at least 25 to 50 years away.
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The good news: Drake says the University of Arizona, which was instrumental in the original moon landings, will surely be involved with any manned travel to the moon and Mars.
Drake said NASA is developing the new Ares rocket system rather than trying to re-create the Saturn V or upgrade the Delta IV rocket for human travel.
"We're reinventing the wheel," Drake said, adding that "almost all the independent thinkers" don't believe NASA is well-funded enough to make a 2020 manned moon launch.
"It ultimately comes to how many people you want to throw at the problem," he said. Every four people on the project will cost NASA $1 million, he said.
Drake said sending man to the moon again would yield scientific benefits and also serve as inspiration to get more youngsters interested in math and science, which would fuel future advances and allow the United States to maintain its leadership in space travel. Visits to nearby asteroids might also teach us how to deflect doomsday asteroids headed for Earth.
He said he fears China will beat NASA to the moon. He said India also wants to reach the moon.
Drake said he thinks a manned lunar mission should be geared toward the goal of putting a man on Mars. The largest obstacle to a voyage to the red planet is not the rocket issue, he said, but the inability of humans to withstand the six-to-nine-month space journey.
He said space travel is damaging to humans because it subjects them to cosmic radiation from which the Earth's magnetic field usually protects them. Scientists need to figure out a way to slow down the division of cells to let astronauts withstand the long voyage.
Such treatments could be a tremendous help in battling diseases on Earth, he said, and justify the astronomical expense of a Mars mission.
"We basically have to figure out how to cheat evolution," Drake said.
NEW MOON MISSIONs
NASA has launched a new package of moon missions to fulfill the Vision for Space Exploration Program, meant to pave the way for another manned trip.
Part of the program is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which launched June 18 on the Atlas V rocket and is slated to "scout out the moon for possible landing sites, characterize the radiation environment and "test new technology," a NASA press release says.
The LRO will orbit the moon for more than a year.
The Atlas V also carries another spacecraft called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will scan for signs of water near the moon's poles and will excavate a permanently shadowed crater.
NASA hopes to send another manned mission to the moon in 2020.
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