THE TURN OF THE QUESTION
Objective moon. Mars goal? On 21 July 1969, the man sets foot on the moon, after more than a decade of space conquest, largely motivated by the rivalry between the United States and the USSR. The next step seems to impose itself: send an inhabited flight to Mars. A technical challenge that does not match the trip in three days to our natural satellite. But fifty years later, Mars seems far removed from aeronautical concerns, while new actors of the space conquest emerge, be they great powers, like China or India, or private companies such as SpaceX or Blue Origin. With one thing in common though: return to the moon.
At the microphone of Wendy Bouchard, in The Tour of the question on Europe 1, our scientific consultant Alain Cirou explains how the dusty star, 47 years after the last inhabited exploration, is again an object of conquest, at the center of the spatial concerns, the not to eclipse the red planet.
>> From 9h to 11h, it is the turn of the question with Wendy Bouchard. Find the replay of the show here
Costly programs .. for not much
In fact, the United States multiplied the space programs aiming at reaching Mars as early as the end of the 1980s, before shutting down the expenditure tap at the end of the 2000s. In 1989, George HW Bush launched the Space Exploration Initiative, with for the purpose of sending men back to the moon to send astronauts to Mars eventually. In 2004, his son's president, George W. Bush, still carries the same ambition with the Constellation program. "Two Presidents Bush did a program, in which they spent a lot of money for communication, but that's it," says Alain Cirou. "Then we saw Clinton say, 'We'll go to Mars'."
On February 1, 2010, President Barack Obama rings the end of American space ambitions and proposes the cancellation of the program, arguing in particular the expenses generated and the delay in relation to the objectives set. "He said stop: 'Since we spent a lot of money doing communication, thinking about the technical means available, [Going to Mars] is extremely complicated, give us time to think about it.'
Moon, a credible destination
The return to a certain budgetary and technical pragmatism has therefore led to abandoning Mars as a destination for an inhabited flight, but especially to make the Moon again a credible destination to maintain an activity in space, essential to the great powers. "Space has become an additional continent, which surrounds the earth and distributes information, location, interconnection on the earth.We are space-dependent," insists Alain Cirou.
The emergence of new space powers has also revived the craze for Earth's only natural satellite. "The Chinese have decided to go to the moon, not by competition, but to show their people that they are able," says Alain Cirou. Because it must be said that the exercise remains particularly dangerous. "Not long ago, the Israelis tried to put an automatic machine on the surface of the moon, it crashed ... it's not that easy."
>> LISTENING - 3:56, the first man on the moon, the unpublished series proposed by Europe 1 on Apollo 11
A space to conquer become economic space
In the context of the trade war he has opened with China, Donald Trump is also projecting his nationalist ambitions on the Moon. Earlier this year, the US government asked NASA to bring Americans back to the moon by 2024, which would be the end of the second term of the White House tenant in the event of re-election, even though he said in a tweet, June 7, that Mars should remain a "bigger" goal. "It's a question of saying: 'We were the first to go to the moon, we will be the first to go back again,' decrypts Alain Cirou.
"After the days of the pioneers who launched satellites and men, responding to a need to demonstrate that we had the technical capacity, today is the economy that has taken over," says our specialist. "The economy has brought two new actors: SpaceX and Blue Origin, who have given the space a market value with uberization of shots and satellites." In the 21st century, the Moon is no longer a distant land to tread, but a market to own. What revive a new form of conquest.