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European Space Agency eyes Moon Village by 2030


It took a little longer than Commander John Koenig might have wished, but it's finally happening.

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently announced plans of making a Moon Base to replace the International Space Station by the 2030s.

ESA Director General Johann Woerner calls it Moon Village, a permanent base that may even help mankind to colonize Mars not long after.

Woerner said the Moon Village would be a collaborative project between spacefaring nations including the United States, Russia, and China.

"I think we should go first to the moon and then further on... I would not call Mars the ultimate goal. I am quite sure humans will go further,"  Woerner said in a report on Tech Times.

Woerner said the village could be used for scientific experiments and could serve as a pit stop in space explorations. Minerals and other resources extracted from the Moon could be used to build and maintain the facility.

"In the Moon Village we would like to combine the capabilities of different spacefaring nations, with the help of robots and astronauts. The participants can work in different fields, perhaps they will conduct pure science and perhaps there will even be business ventures like mining or tourism," he elaborated.

Early this year, ESA proposed prioritization of the moon as the next deep-space destination.

The US' own National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been very open in its plans to send humans to Mars between 2025 and 2030.  But Woerner believes that the moon might be a good testing ground for the technologies set to be used on Mars mission.

“Abandoned by man for 43 years, it remains the only planet attainable by human missions with current technology, but remains poorly understood,” Woerner said in a report early this year on the UK's The Daily Mail.

“The Americans are looking to go to Mars very soon—and I don’t see how we can do that—before going to Mars we should test what we could do on Mars on the Moon,” he added.

This makes ESA’s vision for the Moon Village a feasible stepping stone or platform for further space exploration. — Kiersnerr Gerwin Tacadena/TJD, GMA News

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