Space Penguin Could Hop Around The Moon

notdanielp writes "A robotic Lunar Penguin explorer could be hopping around on the moon by 2009, said Raytheon on Tuesday, as it unveiled the concept lander at an aerospace conference. The unmanned lunar device, in development for two years, is 3 feet tall and weighs approximately 230 pounds. It "hops" by reigniting small propulsion engines ... President Bush last year refocused the space program on sending people to the moon, Mars and beyond. Raytheon said the Penguin could be a robotic precursor to future manned space missions and that it was being proposed to NASA."

Comments

Smoke 'Em Out

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, Bush mouthed some words (dyslexized, no doubt) about sending Americans to Mars. He certainly got some naive geek votes for that soundbyte. So why would he actually spend any time or money on an actual Mars program, now that he's already reaped all the political capital he can use? Why should he do any more to back up his promise than Bush Sr did when he made the same Mars promise 15 years earlier? Why should Bush expect to be accountable for that promise, when 40% of the country is letting him off his promises to win in Iraq, to capture Osama ("dead or alive"), to be the "Education President", to stimulate the economy, to "return integrity" to the White House, to "unite, not divide" the country, to even be able to read his scripts right?

He promised us Mars, and we've got a dubious Shuttle program and visions of a 250lb hopping Lunar probe? Look, how much stupidity can we take before we all have to devalue our IQ points like a Mexican peso?