Title: Return to the Moon
Description: Former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt advocates a private, investor-based approach to returning humans to the Moon—to extract Helium 3 for energy production, to use the Moon as a platform for science and manufacturing, and to establish permanent human colonies there in a kind of stepping stone community on the way to deeper space. With governments playing a supporting role—just as they have in the development of modern commercial aeronautics and agricultural production—Schmitt believes that a fundamentally private enterprise is the only type of organization capable of sustaining such an effort and, eventually, even making it pay off.
Subjects: SPACE COMMERCIALIZATION, Space flight to the moon, LUNAR RESOURCES, Lunar bases, MISSION PLANNING, Lunar mining, IN SITU RESOURCE UTILIZATION, SPACE COLONIES, LUNAR EXPLORATION, Science (General), Astronomy, Astrophysics