The Moon Village | John Mankins | TEDxLagunaBlancaSchool

A former NASA physicist known for his work on space-based solar power, John Mankins explores the possibilities of living on the moon. Today he serves as the Vice President of the Moon Village Association, an NGO with the goal of creating an International Space Station on the Moon for global moon exploration programs.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

(Video)

(John F. Kennedy) Many years ago,

the great British explorer George Mallory,

who was to die on Mount Everest,

was asked why did he want to climb it.

He said, "Because it is there."

(Video ends)

So, in 1962,

then-President Kennedy announced
at Rice University in Texas

the goal of sending humans to the Moon

and returning them safely to Earth
within that decade.

And, of course, we sort of take it
as a given that the President said it,

it became a national initiative,
vast amounts of money were spent.

But, in fact, one of the things
that had to happen

was a large number
of policymakers and taxpayers

all had to be persuaded
that this was a good idea.

Well, in August of 1963,

about 11 months after Kennedy
made his historic speech in Texas,

two NASA scientists

by the name of Newell and Jastrow

wrote a little booklet
which was distributed very widely

among policymakers and to anyone
in the public who was interested,

and basically posed the question:

Why should we land on the Moon?

Why was this worth
a vast amount of money?

And there were three
principal lines of argument

that are discussed in this little booklet.

One, of course, has to do
with the national interest,

national security, national prestige.

We were in the midst of the Cold War,

and the space race with the Soviet Union

was at that moment,
in 1962 and then in 1963,

still being lost.

The Soviet Union had been
the first to space with a satellite.

They had been the first to space
with an animal, a living animal, a dog.

They had been the first to space
with an astronaut,

and the administration
was looking for an initiative

that was something that the US
could win in the space race

because that would demonstrate
that the US socio-economic system

was competitive
and was superior to communism.

So, first and foremost,
national interest, national prestige,

demonstrating that the US
was a superior system.

Secondly, as Kennedy
mentioned in his speech,

we do these things
not because they are easy

but because they are hard.

And the pursuit of the space race
and the pursuit of the Apollo program

would lead to tremendous
technical innovation

in aerospace technologies and computing
and materials and all these technologies

that were of great value
both in the Cold War

and for the future of the United States.

And lastly, for science.

Because there was at that time
still a big question

about how was the Moon formed,

what is the relationship
between the Moon and the Earth,

and what was the earliest origins
of our solar system,

and how did the Earth and the Moon
get affected by the impacts

that came from deep space?

All of those things were unknown.

Well, all of those questions
were addressed

and all of those technologies
were developed.

The space race was won;
missions took place.

So why are we talking now
about going back to the Moon?

There are really
three principal reasons again.

First and foremost,
there's been a fundamental change

in our understanding of the Moon
in the last 10 or 15 years,

based on the discovery

that there is, in fact,
vast amounts of water

in the form of ices and hydrated minerals
at the north and south pole of the Moon.

One of the things
we learned from Apollo

was that the Moon was bone dry

and always would be
and always had been.

There was no water,
no hydrogen, no oxygen,

no way to make life support materials,
no way to make rocket fuels, and so on.

Turned out none of that was true,

and there is, in fact,
a vast amount of water

at the poles of the Moon, where it's cold.

Second big change.

Right now, there is a revolution going on

in space launch systems technology,

driven in large measure by two firms:
SpaceX and Blue Origin,

both of which are developing new launchers

which will deliver payloads to space,

and therefore to the Moon,

at a 90% cost reduction,

from the costs of getting into space
and getting to the Moon,

compared to the glory days
of Apollo and the space shuttle.

That changes everything.

And lastly - and I use these metaphors -

and lastly, there has been
tremendous advances

in a wide range
of technologies here on Earth,

which allow large numbers of 3D printed,

technically modular,

rapidly reconfigurable intelligent systems

to be mass-produced all over the world.

If you have ever seen a little CubeSat,

or you have seen ...

if you have one of these things
in your pocket,

then you are enjoying -
it's a mobile phone -

you are enjoying the benefits
of mass-produced

modular digitally reconfigurable systems.

This changes how we return to the Moon

and what we can do there
and at what price.

As a consequence of water on the Moon,

new launch systems,
lower prices, new technologies,

a vast number of countries and companies

are now all planning to go to the Moon.

And so, one reason
now is the time to go to the Moon

is because everybody else is also going.

And they are going

for the purposes of exploring,
finding those resources,

developing those resources and using them,

not only for basically
the operations on the Moon,

which is kind of
a self-eating watermelon -

we go to the Moon to get resources
to operate on the Moon.

It's not really useful.

But, in addition, finding materials
on the Moon like water ice,

using the other resources of the Moon:

silicon, aluminum, iron, and so on,
to manufacture things,

print things, 3D printing on the Moon,

affordably will allow us
to basically use the Moon

as a stepping-stone
to the rest of the solar system,

and to introduce lunar resources

in the form of manufactured things

into a larger near-Earth economy,

including the delivery of energy,

solar energy harvested in space
to the markets on Earth

in tremendous quantities

and in completely carbon neutral fashion

during the coming decades.

Moreover, we go back to the Moon

because it is a tremendous test bed
for new technologies,

a research and development lab.

We can use it as shown
in the lower right image

as a test bed for going back to Mars.

So it's a tremendous R&D lab

because it's going
to be cheaper to get there

because we'll have the resources
to be there in a sustainable fashion.

And operations in near-Earth space
on orbital platforms

will basically open
the gateway - pun intended -

for a current NASA program on this level

to the rest of the solar system.

Just going in and being on the Moon

is not the same as being able
to go anywhere in the solar system.

That becomes possible.

And, lastly, we go back to the Moon

because it is a tremendous platform

for doing astronomy
and for observing our universe

in ways that we cannot achieve
here on Earth.

And, finally, we go back
to the Moon to stay.

There is no better place
in our solar system

where we might consider the creation
of a sustainable Earth-like habitat

than at the north
and the south pole of the Moon

where we have basically
the same amount of energy,

we have the same kind of minerals.

We have some shortcomings.

But the discovery of water
fundamentally changes the opportunity

for human settlement of the Moon.

And, ultimately, we do all these things

not individually, not in a race,

but we do them because we have
the opportunity to do them together.

We have the opportunity
to do all of these things,

development of the Moon's resources,
delivery of energy for Earth,

sustainable settlements in space
in the form of a village as a metaphor -

not in a race but rather
doing these things altogether.

And I think that many of the students
here at Laguna Blanca

will be part of these programs
in these efforts over the coming years.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)