Bill Nelson is the director of NASA. 71 years old, a mission in space in 1986, he is in Rome for the World Meeting on Human Fraternity of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation. And in an interview with Repubblica he says that everyone asks him «what the Earth looks like from space. I replied that our planet is wonderful and fragile. I flew in 1986, but the wounds of deforestation in the Amazon were already visible. With an orbit every 90 minutes, from up there you won’t notice any political borders or racial or religious barriers. We are all citizens of the Earth.”
The return to the Moon
Then he explains what the stages are for the next return to the Moon: «Artemis II, the mission that will orbit around the Moon, will leave in September 2025. In autumn 2026 Artemis III will bring humans to the satellite again.” But the Moon will be a training ground for returning to Mars: «The Moon is 4 days away, Mars between 6 and 8 months. Once there, then, you will have to wait one or two years for the alignment of the planets to allow you to return to Earth. We will need faster propulsion systems than the current ones.” The missions on lunar soil, he explains, «will initially last a maximum of 30 days. The Japanese space agency collaborating on the Artemis program is building pressurized vehicles to allow astronauts to cover large distances on the ground. Wearing suits, they can then venture outside.”
Agriculture
Nelson explains how the astronauts will feed themselves: «We know how to grow vegetables on samples of lunar soil brought back by the Apollo missions. I think the plot of The Martian, in which Matt Damon survives alone on Mars by growing potatoes, is not far from reality. A network of satellites orbiting the Moon will guarantee communications with the Earth even on the hidden side of the satellite.” Finally, he says that the next war will be fought in orbit: «I lead NASA. His mission is the peaceful exploration of space. If it is true, as the newspapers have reported, that Russia is capable of detonating a nuclear warhead in space, this is a very serious threat to humanity. Such an explosion would also damage Russian cosmonauts and satellites, as well as knock out all the GPS systems on the planet.”
