Scientific American 201907

82 Scientific American, July 2019

P. CARRIL

European Space Agency

is open for groups and individuals to join.

Scientific American spoke to Wörner

about the Moon Village’s goals, the debate

over the moon versus Mars, and why

now is the right time to go. An edited

transcript of the conversation follows.

Tell me about your plan for going
back to the moon.
We don’t want to go back to the moon.

What do you mean?
We want to go forward to the moon. I’m
serious. We do not want a space race,
with the question of prestige. The moon
is the perfect place to really collaborate
on a global scale. In the past, space activ-
ities were realized by direct procurement
of the agencies, as in the Apollo moon
missions. We have similar projects right
now at ESA. And we have projects where
the agency is the broker, the enabler, the
facilitator. This is the Moon Village.
The Moon Village is a multipartner
open concept. Each and every word in
this phrase is important. “Multipartner”
means not only one—it can be as many
as possible. “Open” means there is no
special formality to be a partner of it.
And it is a “concept”: it is not one proj-
ect. Different partners should put in
what they would like to deliver, whether
it’s transportation, whether it’s mining,
whether it’s tourism, whether it’s science,
whether it’s technology development for
in situ resource utilization—for instance,
using the water on the moon for produc-
tion of fuel. It is totally open for differ-
ent purposes.

Do you see the Moon Village
as part of the legacy of Apollo
or a deliberate departure?
Apollo was done in a totally different
environment. Then, competition was the
driver. Now I believe cooperation is the
enabler. But of course, without Apollo,
we would maybe not think about it.

Did you watch the Apollo 11 landing?
How did it affect you?
Yes. I was 15 years old. In Germany, it
was during the night, and I did not sleep
at all. I remember very well: I was look-
ing at the TV; I saw the first steps of Neil
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin. The transmis-
sion ended, and I went out of my home,
into the fresh air. I was breathing deeply
and thinking, “We are doing the future.”

It was really a big day for me. I would

never have thought at that time that I

would be part of space activities. Now

I am the director general of ESA.

Why are you targeting the moon

and not, say, new destinations,

such as Mars?

I’m in favor of also thinking about Mars,

but I believe the moon is the right way

to go forward. We cannot talk today

about human missions to the surface

of Mars because of [the dangers of ] radi-

ation and other challenges. Can we dare

to send humans for a two-year trip in

an environment where survival is really

difficult, and if they have some disease,

we have no way to get them back? We

have to develop better technology.

But the moon is a good playground

for technology development. For instance,

we can use the resources of the surface

of the moon to build structures to shel-

ter the astronauts, to build observatories

LONG -TERM moon colonies would

likely require habitats shielded from

radiation as well as domes for grow-

ing crops and rovers for transport.