Not Doing
What a good Lunar program will NOT do
Often you can gain insight into what you are doing by looking at what you are certain that you are not doing.
Apollo to the Moon again, Not
Lunarpedia is not suggesting that we do Apollo to the Moon again. When we go back to the Moon we have every intention of laying the ground work for a permanent settlement. We do not intend to take another 50 year period off.
We also do not foresee the Cold War to be resurrected this time with the Chinese. The Cold War is history.
That said, we do not believe it is a sound strategy to wait another decade just so we can then save on the cost of providing food for our astronauts by the simple ploy of sending out for Chinese when we get to the Moon.
Control the High Ground, Not
We also do not see the Moon as high ground in the military sense. There is no tactical advantage in conflicts on Earth to have a military presence on the Moon. You can make this argument for low-Earth orbit, but not for the Moon.
The Moon is on the direct invasion route to no-where. Well, maybe Mars.
The military advantage of the moon is that massive amounts of stuff could be shipped to the Earth-moon L2 point at reasonably low cost to support manufacturing. If the things manufactured there were spacecraft with mass accelerators that discharged high speed pellets and large blocks of metal and ceramic; these weapons could be used to fall upon low Earth orbit and take over that space destroying opposing satellites with pellets and using the blocks for bombs. The way to avoid Luna being involved in military control of the high ground is to make certain that existing treaties forbidding military use of Luna are honored.
Colonizing the Moon, Not
We do not support colonizing the Moon is the same sense that European nations colonized the third world in the 18th century. We do not propose to send an army to subjugate the native population and then exploit their resources.
For one thing, there is no native population.
This is the reason that the term "Settlement" is strongly preferred over the term "Colony".
Jamestown Again, Not
We are not going to send a bunch of settlers out past the edge of civilization without a good idea of the dangers there or even how to make a living. We will send people knowledgeable and prepared.
We do need to study the differences between Jamestown and the Mayflower expeditions. We really need to know our history to understand the possibilities of our future.
Remaking a bad SF Movie, Not
Most depictions of space colonies by Hollywood have been very black indeed. We can take a warning from these visions and do something different.
We will not indulge in abuse of robots as shown in "West World".
We will not set up a company run hell hole as depicted in "Outland".
We will not set up an unnecessary war as in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" that killed millions back on Earth.
What we will do is to try to understand what deep seated human fears are driving all these negative images.
(Add your idea here.)
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