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NASA's Bolden: No American-Led Return To the Moon 'In My Lifetime'
MarkWhittington writes "A clash over the future course of American space exploration flared up at a recent joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board. In one corner was Al Carnesale of UCLA, who headed the recent study issued by the National Research Council that found fault with the Obama administration's plan to send American astronauts to an asteroid. In the other corner was NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who has been charged with carrying out the policy condemned by the NRC report."
Obama said it:
... I just have to say pretty bluntly here: Weâ(TM)ve been there before. Buzz has been there. Thereâ(TM)s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do. So I believe itâ(TM)s more important to ramp up our capabilities to reach -- and operate at -- a series of increasingly demanding targets, while advancing our technological capabilities with each step forward.
1st time ever I agree with Obama, there is no reason for government to spend money on a manned Moon mission. Of-course I would just dismantle all government programs, but that's a different story.
You can see my sig for a pretty good reason why USA cannot afford anything like the Moon program probably for a very very very long time.
You can't handle the truth.
Look at this little planet Earth, its moon is HUGE. Only Jupiter and Saturn have bigger moons. Luna is nearly as big as Mercury, half as big as Mars but its home planet hasn't colonized it. Obviously there's no intelligent life there. Let's claim them both for the queen of the galactic empire.
Obama's plan is beyond daft. Asteroids are unstable, there is no place to hide from cosmic radiation or Bremstralung X-rays from solar wind. A mission failure in the lunar capture plan could lead to a global disaster. Could Columbus and Magellan have discovered the New World before they had ever sailed the Mediterranean? Could the Polynesians have found Hawaii and New Zealand if they weren't already experienced navigators amongst the nearby islands of Polynesia? What if the first of England had decided to capture Sumatra and bring the entire island home for the British crown before the British Navy had ever ventured as far as Ireland, would you have considered that to be a good plan? Its better than Obama's plan.