Eli5: Why is Earth’s moon often the top candidate for the attempted establishment of a human colony in space?
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The first time you go camping, you’re probably going to go to one of those established sites with showers and toilets and numbered campsites. You learn a lot about camping that way. You get used to setting up camp, cooking on a camping stove or over a fire pit, and sleeping in the great outdoors.
Where do you go from there? Maybe it’s a campground without showers and toilets. Maybe it’s a hike into the woods or up a mountain to the site. The things learned from your early camping experiences carry over and prepare you for a more remote camping experience.
The moon is sort of like the earlier scenario. It’s a stepping stone towards a more remote location. You can get to the moon on a couple days. You can launch at anytime to get there. It’s relatively easy. Mars is months away, and you can only launch when the orbits of the two planets are in the right spot. The moon is car camping, mars is everest camp 3.
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