Back to Moon in 2015?

Mistress.Erin writes "NASA has announced they may send astronauts back to the moon as early as 2015, and may build an international base once they get there. From TFA:"The next mission to land a man on the moon will take place in 2015 at the earliest, the new chief of the United States' space program said on Monday, adding the mission could be followed by the construction of a multinational space station there. But NASA has not yet decided what vehicles will be used to reach the moon, or what will succeed the aging space shuttle fleet, which is due to be retired in 2010.""

Comments

Re:Then & Now

[AKAImBatman]

Not true. The Saturn V was a superb super-booster that was capable of lifting just about anything into orbit. For example, a Saturn V was used to lift the entire Skylab Space Station in one flight. Von Braun was also a big proponent of using a Saturn V to lift a Mini Orion into orbit for interplanetary travel.

The reason why the Saturn V *seems* useless is that the primary focus of the Apollo and Gemini programs was to develop the technology and execute a plan to reach the moon. If the Saturn V was still flying today, you can bet it wouldn't cost several billion dollars to get the ISS up there. We'd launch the stupid thing in two or three pieces, only minor assembly required. Compare that to the dozens of shuttle flights and Russian launches necessary to get the current structure up there. And it's not even done!