Mainly proximity. First off it’s close enough that we’ve sent several probes and people so we’re quite familiar with it’s atmosphere and topography. That allows us to know with more certainty the challenges of living there. Second we can quickly transport supplies and equipment lowering the cost and risk.
Honestly, because it’s really close.
The Moon is a great candidated because the cost of transport between Earth and Moon is *relatively* timely and inexpensive.
Colonising the moon would also theoretically make travel to other places easier, as it would be easier to escape the Moon’s gravity than the Earth’s – we could move bigger payloads with less fuel.
The moon is comparatively easier than any other option to get to. To get the moon we only need to cross 238,900 miles, Mars for comparison is at closest 33,900,000 miles away or up to 138,120,000 miles away.
The moon takes a few days to get to at any time, it takes a several months to get to Mars during a window every couple years.
Its wayyyy closer
If something goes wrong, you can hop into a ship, blast off, and only need 3 days of oxygen to safely make it back to Earth from the Moon
Launch tables from Mars to Earth aren’t readily available, but from Earth to Mars takes 120-220 days depending on when in the launch window and how strong the rocket is. Mars would basically need to keep a full year’s worth of supplies somewhere super duper safe. If something goes wrong and they need to bail but those supplies were damaged/destroyed there’s no coming home, just dying in the darkness of space
We always do test runs close by. They test out Mars rovers in a desert in Chile because its a close approximation and wayyyy easier to access than Mars itself and if something goes wrong they can just fly a spare part in next week. Prototypes and proof of concept always stay close because the assumption for the first run is that something will go wrong, and if nothing goes wrong then it wasn’t an adequate test
The primary reason is that it’s close and easiest to reach compared to other targets like Mars.
In order to travel to other planets like Mars, for example, we need to wait for the Earth and Mars to be close to each other in their relative orbit positions around the sun in order for it to be practical to reach Mars. This alignment only happens once every 26 months and when it comes up it still takes several months for a vessel to make the trip with today’s technology.
The moon, on the other hand, is orbiting Earth and a mission can be launched practically every day and it only takes about 3 days of travel to reach it. So if help or supplies are needed the colony on the moon can be reached quickly (in relative terms).
So, a colony built anywhere but the moon needs to be self sufficient from day 1 because no help or supplies can be sent for at least 2 years. A moon colony does not need to be self sufficient and can be practically resupplied on a periodic basis.
Furthermore, some ambitious scientists hope to use a base on the moon as a launching point for missions to other planets. The moon’s gravity is a lot less than on Earth so you don’t need as much fuel to get off the surface of the moon. So you can send heavier cargo loads using less fuel to other planets from the moon than launching it from Earth.
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