Slashdot Mirror
NASA Plan to Return to the Moon
sjoeboo writes "NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion during the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018.
The U.S. space agency now expects to roll out its lunar exploration plan to key Congressional committees on Friday and to the broader public through a news conference on Monday."
NASA's newly appointed Administrator Michael Brown announced that 240,000 volunteers had applied for permanent assignment to the newly constructed Moonbase NO. NASA's prime contractor Halliburton has been awarded an open-ended construction and integration contract.
I for one welcome our new private sector overlords.
This is the only plausible Bush White House agenda item that cause them to part with more than a token amount for space exploration. L1 is more useful as a platform from which to launch missiles back at earth than it is to launch science experiments back to the Moon. This is the administration that questions the validity and the necessity for most kinds of basic research so they're not going to part with large sums of money to do that sciencey stuff.
Collecting moon rocks: $100 Billion
Aid to Katrina victims: $10 Billion
Having the intelligence of a moon rock, yet still duping the American public into thinking you are a compassionate, Christian conservative: PRICELESS
it's not about exploration, it's about money. Rich people don't want to pay for it.
Isn't it common knowledge that the first moon landing was a fake?!?
I for one believe, that would be the only logical explanation as to why it would take so long to do it for real this time and how they could do it so quickly 40 years ago.
Just remind me again why America is going back to the moon. Did you leave something behind?
Seriously though why go back? Is it because the chinese will be able to get there soon so it's time to flex some muscle and show them who's boss?
I'm not going to whine about how the money could be better spent on feeding the poor etc etc. I firmly believe that the money should be spent on science but come on. Surely you can get more bang for you buck from other areas of research. $100 billion would build a fusion reactor. It would go a long way to producing a hydrogen economy. I could cure a number of diseases. Why fritter it away so that a couple of people can walk around on a not very interesting bit of rock.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
We will be lucky to get out of Iraq and back into New Orleans by 2018, who cares about the moon?