Original subtitles

(intense fast music)

For over a century, the planet Mars

has been an enduring theme in science fiction.

From martian invaders, to human plans to transform

the Red Planet into a second home world.

Today, science fact is replacing science fiction.

And, to many people, it seems clear that

mankind's destiny as a spacefaring species,

lies here on Mars, rather than on the moon.

They're known as the Mars Direct Lobby.

Others disagree, concerned that such a step

may be a giant leap too far.

They are known as the Moon First Lobby.

Mars has been the planet that has captured

the imagination of science fiction writers,

and a lot of people in my business,

cut their teeth on science fiction.

So, they read science fiction, and they watched

science fiction movies and television as kids,

now they're adults, they're working in the business,

they always wanted to, and to them,

it's obvious you go to Mars.

Mars is the planet that's most Earth like,

of all the rocky planets, in the sense that it has

a reasonably equitable climate, it has evidence

for pass internal heat, it has evidence

for presence of water in a variety of states.

So, of all the planets, it is the one most likely

to have originated life.

And people want to know if that's true or not.

So that drive, that question, send a lot of

people off the deep end, of saying,

"Well, Mars is the obvious target, it's the next target.

"We've been to the moon, we've done that."

And I think that's looking at it the wrong way.

I don't deny that the origin of life is an important

scientific question, but there are a lot of

scientific questions, and that's one of many.

And the reason I have the (mumbles) is that if

you build my system, you can go everywhere.

See, I don't just want the moon, and I just don't want Mars,

and I just don't want asteroids, I want all of that.

And the way to get all of that, is to build a system

that's robust, that's incremental, that allows you

to gradually, but continuously, extend your reach.

I don't necessarily look at moon versus Mars.

I basically look at, you know, what's the

logical progression to get to Mars.

Can I use the lunar surface as a proving ground

before I go to Mars?

Now, the environments are obviously different.

Mars has an atmosphere, even if it's tenuous,

it's seasonal variations are different than the moon,

but there's enough things that you can do on the moon

that could help you get to Mars.

What's going on now is a lot of countries are

looking at Mars as being a bridge too far at the moment.

That's fine.

And, therefore, the moon makes a lot more sense.

It's relatively close, the United States has been

to the moon, so to a certain extent, it's not a been there,

done that, but it's we know we can do it again.

There are countries that are just literally

getting outside of Earth orbit for the first time.

So, going straight to Mars, really doesn't make

a lot of sense for those countries.

The people in China, and people in India,

and Japan, they want to see people on the Moon,

from their country, in their lifetimes.

They want to do it, they don't want to sit around

and talk about it, they want to do it.

So, I think that's why there's intense international

interest in the moon, it's a goal that's achievable,

it's a goal that has value, in terms of creating

space like capability, and it's something that

excites a lot of their supporting public.

So, they're very interested in the moon.

To many in the Moon First community,

the practical benefits of being able to test

a new generation of off world technologies,

are very appealing.

Not least because if anything goes wrong,

help is only days away, rather than months, or even years.

But that's not the only reason to return to the moon

The second thing, though, is the moon on its own

has tremendous resources, and a reason for

being there besides just science.

And so, whether it's the minerals, and the types

of different metals that may exist on the Moon,

whether it's water, those are things that society can use.

So, in 30 or 40 years, hopefully we've started

to not just go to the moon and look at the rocks,

and set up telescopes and things like that,

but we're actually trying to use it commercially.

And on the face of it, the commercial

value of the moon, could be literally out of this world.

Distilling rocket fuel out of moon rock,

could be extremely profitable.

As could mining platinum metals, and rare earths.

And the rare isotope helium three,

could turn out to be priceless.

It may be the most valuable substance known to human kind,

and unlike the Earth, the moon has millions of

tons of this stuff distributed across its smiling face.

The list of lunar goodies just keeps growing.

This has obvious commercial value.

And in fact, it will never be done as a government program,

it's always going to have to be,

there's going to have to be some commercial value,

and some group of investors and operators,

to make this thing work on a long term basis.

Now, my feeling is that the best way to induce

commercial activity on the moon, is to have

NASA lead and show that it's possible.

To show how difficult it is, and what it costs.

And then have the private sector

take that over and innovate.

In the last few years, over a dozen

companies have begun to make their

spacefaring intentions public.

Some are offering economical trips to low Earth orbit.

Others are offering innovative space habitat solutions.

Yet, others are promising to cash in on the

resources to be found on the moon, and on asteroids.

In each case, the plan is to hasten slowly.

To take small steps that can build upon the one before.

Remember, we didn't first land the Lunar Module on the

moon, we first landed a small little thing called Surveyor.

And we actually crashed a few things, called Ranger,

before that, so we started small, to show,

to learn how to do it, to show that it could be done,

and that's sort of the approach being taken

by the small companies like Moon Express, Nastrobotic,

and the Israelis, who are all competing

for the Google X prize.

And that's the first step, that's the way to, sort of,

let people get their feet wet, with the concepts

of designing space craft, delivering small payloads,

that's one way to develop a commercial industry,

is to seed it with a prize, and let people compete for it.

The Google Lunar X prize,

challenges privately funded space flight teams,

to land a robotic space craft on the moon,

travel 500 meters, and then send back high definition video,

and images of the terrain.

The winning team will net a cool 20 million.

But the bigger goal is to incentivize entrepreneurs,

to create a new era of affordable

access to the moon and beyond.

And to inspire the next generation of

scientists, engineers, and explorers.

Many observers believe that the next boot print

on the moon will be Chinese.

Closely followed by those from the host of other nations,

who dream of becoming spacefarers.

They, too, will proudly plant their national flags

in the moons unforgiving regolith.

Interestingly, some say symbolically,

when they get around to looking for the six

American flags planted by the Apollo astronauts,

they may be surprised by what they found.

Those flags have been on the moon now for almost 50 years.

And they've been exposed to the full fury of

14 days of lunar sunlight, where the sun is searing

their surface, and it gets up to...

The surface temperature is 100 Centigrade at noon.

And the numbing cold of lunar night,

which follows 14 days later, and it gets down to -150 C.

And if you look at any flag that's been out on Earth

for a long period of time, you'll notice

that the colors are faded.

I suspect that the flags on the moon are largely white,

because they've been bleached by

solar ultraviolet for 50 years.

In a way, that's kind of symbolic.

We got six flags planted by Americans on the moon,

all of them are now white.

That symbolism reflects the essence

of the United Nations outer space treaty,

which clearly states that the exploration

and use of outer space, including the moon,

is the province of all mankind.

Time will tell whether that treaty will hold,

as a new era in space exploration and development dawns.

But what is certain, is that our moon,

and our solar system, are about to be changed forever.

(dramatic music)