This is fuckin' awesome:

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2006/12/0 ... -moon-camp

NASA Says It Will Set Up Polar Moon Camp

WASHINGTON — NASA announced Monday it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts return to the moon.

It is a sweeping departure from the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and represents a new phase of space exploration after space shuttles are retired in 2010.

After consulting more than 1,000 experts from 14 different countries, NASA decided on what deputy NASA chief Shana Dale called a "fundamental lunar approach" that is sharply different from its previous moon missions in nearly everything but the shape of the ship going there.

NASA chose a "lunar outpost" over the short expeditions of the '60s. Apollo flights were all around the center of the moon, but NASA decided to go to the moon's poles because they are best for longer-term settlements. And this time NASA is welcoming other nations on its journey.

The more likely of the two lunar destinations is the moon's south pole because it's sunlit for three-quarters of the time, making solar power easier, and has possible resources to mine in dark areas nearby, said associate deputy administrator Doug Cooke.

To get to the moon, NASA envisions an all-purpose lunar lander that could touch down anywhere and can be the first part of a base camp, said exploration chief Scott Horowitz.

"The nickname I use for the lander is, it's a pickup truck," Horowitz said in a Monday news conference from Houston. "You can put whatever you want in the back. You can take it to wherever you want. So you can deliver cargo, crew, do it robotically, do it with humans on board. These are the types of things we're looking for in this system."

In the wake of the space shuttle Columbia accident, President Bush announced in 2004 a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. His plan would take 16 years, twice as long as NASA's first trip to the moon took in planning. NASA has refused to estimate a price tag for the project.

I like it when Bush pretends to know/care about science. I'd say it is more likely he just realizes (or was told by his cabinet) that if you do something with Americans and the moon the public will think you care about scientific advancement. What a joke.

How about you do something about all the particle accelerator programs that have been cancelled the past couple decades, Bushy?

Huzzah!

Yeah.

I can't think of anything more worthwhile to spend money on.

WE CAN M1SSLE TEH BROWN PEOPLE FROM TEH M00N!






They cannot defeat our superior technologies.

I wouldn't set foot there, with those freaky monoliths and all.

Well its a hell of a lot more useful than most of the other shit we spend money on.

In the spectrum of shit the government spends money on, I prioritize a lot of shit above NASA.

but you guys can afford this because vast swathes of your population aren't living below the poverty line, right?

oh, wait.

I prioritize a lot of shit above NASA too. That is only because the projects they do are retarded and designed to appeal to the public, because everyone pays attention to NASAs big projects. Also, an average NASA project could fund like... well, a fucking shitload of other scientific research, which we would learn a lot more from. For instance, the particle accelerators I mentioned earlier in the thread.

As to vacatetheword's comment, I say this. Yes, we have lots of homeless and jobless people, and even more living in poverty. However, that doesn't mean that we aren't entitled to spend money on science and research. It is easier to argue about NASA because one space shuttle could probably fund a large metropolis full of homeless people, but that could just as easily be said about our brilliant war in Iraq...

Point is, science is good, but we should listen to the scientists to decide what to research, not Bush's dumbshit cabinet members. Think of all the researchers out there waiting to cure cancer and all sorts of other crazy stuff with stem cell research.

But what if we found a cure for cancer on the moon? Come on people, use your heads.

Holy shit, why didn't I think of that?

Or maybe the space program will lead to satellite tvs, vision screening systems, medical imaging technologies, artificial limbs, and on and on and on. Or maybe it already has and was all just a waste of money anyway.

If you are trying to imply that I don't recognize the advancements we have made due to the space program, then you are wrong. I advocate any kind of scientific advancement. A station on the moon just sounds like an extremely expensive attempt at convincing Americans someone cares about science.

I'm implying people who bemoan the space program at every chance don't know much about it.

But anyway, in regards to your comments, Stephen Hawking has constantly been saying, croaking, mouthing, what have you, that humans have to colonize somewhere in space to survive. Is a station on the moon not a worthwhile start in such an effort?

No, actually, it is not. I'm not sure I am able to get into a really technical argument with you right now about this because I don't have all the facts about this moon colony. I do know quite a bit about the problems with colonization of other planets, and the problems that the human race are currently facing.

There is a lot of actual research that needs to be done for us to be able to colonize another world. First of all, we need to have an energy source that we don't have to take with us. Fusion power would be the most obvious of these, so there is one place research could go. Also, we need a method of propulsion that doesn't cause the weight of the craft and equivalently the mass of fuel needed to exponentially grow as the proposed trip gets longer. Then there is the whole environmental control issue. The list is endless really. I'm sure there is plenty of worthwhile research that can be conducted on the moon. But I doubt if much of it is something that can't be done 100 times easier on Earth.

I don't bemoan the space program at every chance, and I also know more about it than a lot of people. There are simply certain things I don't like about NASA, and in general the bigger the project is and the more it is advertised to the public, the bigger waste of money it is. One thing that pisses me off more than anything is when a space shuttle crashes or a mars lander fails and people want to cut funding to the entire program - or because we haven't made any "significant" progress (insert any publicly important mission here), that NASA is declining and should get less funding. As far as I'm concerned all the important shit is in the smaller programs that noone knows about, and that is where the money should be going, not some bullshit star wars space station on the Moon.

I don't doubt that any of this post, but like you I tire of people constantly bitching about NASA's very existence.

I also doubt Bush has colonization in mind, but I think that's what it would eventually turn to. The moon isn't the greatest option, but it's the best trial run we could possibly have for life outside Earth. The one thing it could create is a much easier system of travel. I have very limited knowledge of this kind of science, but it is my understanding that launching from space is hugely more efficient and safe. Having launch capabilities from the moon would seem to be invaluable.

What I do know about the benefits of a space station or moon bases (sounds like I’m discussing a bad sci-fi movie) is that the ships can be much larger as gravity won’t be an issue. With the bigger ships an opportunity for greater thrusts becomes available and deeper space travel and then landing on Mars becomes a far more viable option. Once we hit Mars though, we’ll find Transformers, or find nothing and grow more and more isolated in the great barren desert that is our galaxy.