Return to the Moon

Former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt advocates a private, investor-based approach to returning humans to the Moon to extract Helium 3 for energy production, to use the Moon as a platform for science and manufacturing, and to establish permanent human colonies there in a kind of stepping stone community on the way to deeper space. With governments playing a supporting role just as they have in the development of modern commercial aeronautics and agricultural production Schmitt believes that a fundamentally private enterprise is the only type of organization capable of sustaining such an effort and, eventually, even making it pay off.The Moon is not just a "local" destination, argues former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt. As a destination, the Moon presents us with a goal that tests our resourcefulness and determination. How much are we willing to spend to re-establish ourselves as space-farers? Return to the Moon proposes that we begin planning, and now, for the establishment of human outposts on the Moon not just as an exercise in technology and discovery, and not just as a way of fulfilling our destiny as explorers and pioneers. Schmitt, having himself traveled to and literally walked on the Moon, is no stranger to technology, discovery, and a sense of our destiny as explorers; but in this book he focuses on a return to the moon as a business proposition.