Message posted by Gregos on April 18, 2010 at 0:40:16 PST:

Good points made by all but my problem with the current policy is the lack of a set goal to reach. I think America needs that more than ever right now. Sure, we've been there and done that, but we have so much more to learn. Apollo didn't even scratch the surface. We barely touched the surface, literally. The Apollo program did indeed cost a lot. 25 Billion in 1969 dollars but the technology achieved and all the spin offs certainly outweighs that easily. Not to mention over 800 pounds of samples returned to Earth. The other thing that bothers me is even though we did it, it's not like we can return there at will. With the old plan it was still going to take over 10 years to get back there. That's longer than Apollo took and they made it up as they went!

As of right now, the last space shuttle flight is scheduled for September of this year. Now the space shuttle is almost criminally expensive to operate. However, it's the only game we got. Once that's gone we become passengers instead of innovators. Drifting farther away from us leading the world in space. We Americans are consumers and no longer producers and it gets worse everyday. Need an example? You know all those sea containers offered by storage companies nationwide? Where do you think they come from? China doesn't ship empty sea containers back.

Yes, there are better things to spend billions of dollars on in America. But maybe we should redirect other wastes of the American tax payer's money first. I think when China does plant their flag into the lunar regolith, the naysayers will change their tune pretty quickly. Time will tell...

In Reply to: Re: O.T. Lost Moon? posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on April 17, 2010 at 16:07:29 PST:

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