Superman – Just because human existence has caused great destruction to Earth, you’re forgetting, we had to get to the industrial age to get to the environmental (or green) age. Our planet is going to be just fine. Exploring space and colonizing other planets helps our technology get to a point that we can stop emitting harmful chemicals, stripping the ground of goodies, etc…all of this was ALWAYS going to happen. “We” didn’t do this to the planet. The planet did it to it self. We are just as much a part of this earth as those trees are. If we didn’t start chopping them down, we’d be living in trees! lol. Though I do agree, we need to start cleaning up now, but I don’t think we should let that keep us from moving past Earth.

Frank – It only takes a few years for a prototype reactor to be turned into a commercial size one. I know at the University of Chicago or something there is a prototype of this type of reactor. And to say there is no need to mine for he3 when we don’t have a use for it yet is pretty short-sighted. If we don’t start stockpiling it, other countries will have it all and we’ll be buying it from them, driving up our debt.

Exploration is something that has driven our race to where it is. Without exploration, we are doomed to become extinct. And I for one do not prefer that over humans “trashing” up another planet!

There are many good reasons for permanent human presence on the Moon, but that one won’t mean anything until commercial fusion plants using He3 actually exist. Until then, there is no signifigant market for the stuff…

“I don’t think one filthy human being should be allowed off this planet until we repair the damage we have done to her.”

Personally, I always bathe before flying…

Yes, if we must wait for that mythical day when ‘all our problems on Earth have been solved,’ then it’s true that we will never go anywhere. Fortunately, it’s not necessary to have the unanimous permission of every human on Earth, in order to go anyway.

“I hope and pray somethign or someone stops us before we have a chance to extend our violence and destruction beyond this poor, helpless, and dying earth.”

And go to worlds that (with one or two possible exceptions in this solar system) have always been dead? ‘Destroying’ the Moon biologically, was done by nature long ago.

Any ’someone or something’ that could stop us, may not be very benign either. Be careful what you wish for…

I mean eventually we’re going to want to create ships outside of the Earth. Perhaps large ones that would require feats of engineering to launch on Earth, would be much simpler to lauch from the moon.

The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere or a large amount of orbiting garbage, but also has a much weaker gravity.

But I suppose before you go that far in concepts it’d be better to find economical and environmentally responsible methods of getting payloads into space.

Until there is a shuttle replacement, then we are in effect limited to unmanned missions and manned missions to the ISS.

There can be no mission to Mars until we solve the radiation problems outside the earths magnetosphere…and the best place to do that are trips to the moon and moon habitation.

and final word…the US better figure out how to deal with a moon-base or another space faring nation is going to claim ownership and get a moonbase before we do.

Congress and the President might one day, even soon, decide to abandon the long-term national goal of setting up a manned station on the Moon, but such a change in policy did not happen, nor was it remotely hinted at, today.

Nothing in Soclese’s testimony before a U.S. House committee was inconsistent with present law or NASA policy.

On October 15, 2008 Congress passed the Fiscal Year 2009 NASA budget, and in the language of that legislation (H.R. 6063) was the following, now known as Public Law 110-422.

“As NASA works toward the establishment of a lunar outpost, NASA shall make no plans that would require a lunar outpost to be occupied to maintain its viability. Any such outpost shall be operable as a human-tended facility capable of remote or autonomous operation for extended periods.”

Reports that NASA, “instead of building a permanent lunar base, may instead send astronauts on short sorties, or excursions,” are more than a year overdue.

This language was included in original mark-up language in the House sub-committee when the U.S. House started the ball rolling on the President’s budget request for NASA 11 months ago.

Added in committee, passed by both House and Senate and signed by the President, this must be one of the most under-reported stories of 2008, with regard to national space policy.

The United States formally instructed NASA to plan for an eventual Lunar outpost that could remain unmanned, for indeterminate periods of time last year, just as Scolese alluded to in his testimony April 29.

Only writers living outside the context of present long-term space policy could accuse Scolese or NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Doug Cooke, of providing “vague answers” to questions from congressional committee Members.

Further, nothing in this section of NASA’s budget (federal law, 42 U.S. Code 17732) was later changed in President Barack Obama’s supplemental “stimulus” budget package (Public Law 111-5) signed into law February 5.

The clarifying changes made to NASA’s long-term manned exploration strategy last year, eliminating design planning for a permanently manned lunar outpost appears to be one of the most fundamentally under-reported stories of 2008.

For example, almost nowhere will you find the following, which like the sentence above, also appeared in the earliest mark-ups of this year’s operating budget for NASA:

(b) DESIGNATION.—The United States portion of the first human-tended outpost established on the surface of the Moon shall be designated the ‘‘Neil A. Armstrong Lunar Outpost’’.

Or the following, understood in context and as context, could explain some of awards NASA made in support of ISS re-supply missions a few weeks later:

(c) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that NASA should make use of commercial services to the maximum extent practicable in support of its lunar outpost activities.

Reporters who want to decypher happenings within NASA should remember, under the law, the agency is very much “a creature of Congress.” Presidents come and go, but Congress has the power of the purse, most especially the U.S. House of Representatives, where all spending plans must begin.