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Back to Moon in 2015?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'll-believe-it-when-the-rocks-are-at-the-smithsonian dept.

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.""

4 of 697 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why? by NardofDoom · · Score: 1, Troll
    To expand on Dvorkin's answers:

    Energy: Solar power stations using silicon manufactured on the moon or mining for Helium-3 for fusion power.

    Insurance: Eggs in one basket = bad. Even if you never send people to the moon, knowing a lot about deep space operations makes redirecting asteroids or comets away from Earth much easier.

    Better use of Funds: The current military-industrial complex spends billions on technologies that can't be tested (like the 'missile defense') and cannot be audited. If we're going to spend all that money on fancy high-tech stuff, why not make it something productive instead of destructive?

    --
    You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
  2. Re:I'm all for science/technology/astronomy but... by ahodgson · · Score: 0, Troll

    use newer, faster, better, cheaper technology.

    Then why will it take at least as long as it did the last time?

    Oh, right, because NASA is now a pork provider, not a space agency.

  3. Re:why not use the $ for universal healthcare? by Cryofan · · Score: 0, Troll

    If I were King of America, I would sentence every warmonger, every libertarian who every wanted to spend money on pseudoscience hero-mongering, hierarchy worship like moon missions, to a punishment of living in a coffin with a rotting corpse, one of a dead American who died because he/she could not get basic healthcare because the money was spent on some militaristic-corporatist adventure or hero-worship crap like Iraq. See how you like the smell of week-old rotting corpse.....

    --
    eat shiat and bark at the moon
  4. Re:Why? by NardofDoom · · Score: 0, Troll
    Oh great and powerful /. Gods! Forgive this mere mortal for questioning the wisdom of spending $400 billion a year in unaudited funds on breaking things and hurting people. I must have forgotten that I need to support the troops by cutting VA funding and spending it on technologies that don't work.

    </sarcasm>

    --
    You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!