Scientific American 201907

(Rick Simeone) #1
80 Scientific American, July 2019

MATTHEW STAVER

Getty Images

( photograph

);

P. CARRIL

European Space Agency

( illustration

)

HUMANITY FIRST WENT TO THE


MOON TO MAKE A POINT. NOW


IT’S TIME TO OVERCOME RIVALRIES


AND PITCH IN TOGETHER


By Clara Moskowitz


COME ONE,


COME ALL


Without the cold war, Apollo 11
never would have happened.
The urge to beat the Soviets to
the moon and prove U.S. techno-
logical superiority motivated
Congress to devote almost 4.5  per-
cent of the U.S. national budget to
nasa at the peak of the space race
in 1966. Yet after the first moon
landing three years later, the
agency never again received more than 2  percent of the budget,
and it has gotten around half a percent every year since 2010.
These days national prestige is not enough of an incentive
for most countries to go it alone in space. If we are to travel
again to another planetary body, it will have to be together.
This idea has perhaps been expressed most vociferously by
Johann-Dietrich (“Jan”) Wörner, director general of the Europe-
an Space Agency (ESA). In 2015 Wörner introduced his vision
for the “Moon Village,” a cooperative campsite of sorts on the lu-
nar surface. Countries, private companies, universities, non-
profits and individuals are welcome to send people, robots, and
all manner of scientific, exploratory and commercial
ventures to take part. And to back up the Moon Village’s inter-
national and collaborative bona fides, the project is officially
being organized not by ESA but by a Vienna-based nongovern-
mental organization called the Moon Village Association, which

1969

APOLLO 11

ANNIVERSARY

2019
50
years

JAN WÖRNER
ESA director general

SCIENTIFIC and commercial
activities by multiple nations
and companies could coexist
in the Moon Village.
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