(Mirror Daily, United States) – There has been a lot of talk lately that NASA will try to send a team to the moon again. But should we go back to the moon? What are the benefits of such a costly trip? Is it more to this than showing the Chinese that we can do it again? And more importantly, shouldn’t we focus more on the Mars mission?

Paul Spudis, a lunar scientist and geologist explores this subject in his latest book, “The Value of the Moon: How to study, live, and prosper in space using Moon’s resources. According to him, we should go back to the moon.

Spudis is proposing a private-public partnership between commercial companies and NASA. The endgame would be a lunar base. But he predicts the facility would be built approximately 16 after the project’s official start.

The scientist also writes about the fact that China is working on a lunar project of its own, and it is highly possible that taikonauts will step foot on Earth’s satellite sometime in the next 5 to 10 years. And the communist country is not the only one eyeing the Moon.

Europe and Russia are also interested in sending a manned team on the satellite, but Spudis believes the Chinese will be the first nation to succeed.

The author is not bothered by the fact that other countries want to explore the celestial body, but he is criticizing the lack of interest that the United States is showing when it comes to establishing a palpable presence in the region between the satellite and our planet. In fact, Americans did get there first.

Spudis is proposing that an extended lunar mission could ultimately bring lots of profits to the nation. He speculates that things like Moon-made water and space commerce will soon dominate the market. Also, he sees great potential for building customized space habitats, and extensive satellite networks that would be capable of providing enough bandwidth for internet and telecommunication to a hemisphere.

The view of the author seems like it was taken out of a science fiction novel. He thinks that in a couple of decades Earth and Moon trips would be as standard as Washington – Florida air flights.

He continues to say that the best places to build a settlement are the poles where the lunar ice craters are. Also, they could harness energy from the direct sunlight.

So if you want to know what scientists answered when asked “should we go back to the moon?”, then check out Spudis’ long answer.

Image source: Wikimedia