9 Reasons We Should Go Back To The Moon
3. To Use It As A Training Ground
Missions to Mars, Venus or anywhere else in our solar system are going to be difficult, lengthy processes. They're also going to be incredibly dangerous for the people involved, and giving our astronauts the best training we can before catapulting them into the black void of space is probably a good idea.
Training for life on an alien world is currently undertaken on earth in our best approximations of extraterrestrial conditions, but it's difficult to mirror exactly what life would be like in an off-world base.
A mission to Mars is likely to take a minimum of 18 months and we have no real idea as to how that would affect a human being. Flight time to the red planet could be anywhere between six months to a year so ironing out any problems in a training environment would be essential.
The moon would be a much better analogue for a Martian environment than somewhere like the Mojave desert, and much closer to home than Mars. Testing our engineering and our astronauts in this environment before taking the plunge would massively increase the chances of success. Who knows, maybe one day young hopefuls could be attending the Moon Academy.