NASA is all set to announce a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2018. Normally I would be excited about this sort of affair, space travel and all, but this is anti-climactic. We have already been to the moon and short of establishing a permanent presence there for scientific and commercial gains; I see no reason to return. President Bush had announced earlier, a broad plan to return astronauts to the Moon and eventually to Mars. Why? Simply visiting these heavenly bodies is no longer sufficiently challenging, we should be pressing for permanent settlement of both the Moon and eventually Mars. Landing on the Moon was accomplished on July 20th, 1969. That will be nearly a half century between the first Moon landing and the proposed 2018 landing. Imagine if other fields of research were planning on reaching the same goals in 2020 that they did around 1970? NASA is good at two things, spending enormous amounts of money on and pushing the envelope of research in space (and the latter is questionable of late). It should not be NASA’s goal to re-accomplish tasks that it had successfully achieved 50 years ago.
This goal is an ill-conceived, ill-timed, and uninspired attempt by a failing presidential administration to attract attention to space, and arguably lure attention away from other current events. President Bush is attempting to re-create the scientific and exploratory fervor of the early 60’s instilled in our nation by President Kennedy; unfortunately President Bush has missed the mark. And don’t forget that we currently have a grounded fleet of Space Shuttles and an all but useless Space Station floating high above. It is my opinion that we ought to finish what we started with the International Space Station, figure out a way to get into space without burning piles of money, and start colonization of the Moon, Mars and any other rock we can get to.
