Return to the moon

OK,

We have the SETI opinion poll running at the minute however most of the Nasa budget is now directed at Bush's dream of returning to the moon. My own opinion is that this is an excercise in getting his name into the history of scientific achievements rather than true exploration. We have been to the moon and we are fairly sure about the limits of possible new discoveries that this could achieve. I do not think that this would be in any way a stepping stone to Mars since any vehicle for Mars would have to be completly different.
Anyway voice your own opinion.

I'm with you entirely Kieran. Complete waste of money. Though a little bit inside me says I'd love to see it since I wasn't old enough to see it all happen during the Apollo era.

More than a little bit of me will be pushing little old ladies out of the way of the TV screen if they actually get it together but I will still be thinking what new finds we have missed because of it.

Kieran

I thought the idea of the moon was a stepping stone to Mars and not just an end in itself. OK, so a Mars mission would look different (in terms of vehicles) but I thought the idea of the moon was so it could be used to launch the Mars vehicle. It would take rather less fuel than an Earth launch and so make the Mars mission more viable. whether the moon could be used to harvest the fuel is another matter altogether I guess... Personally, I would like to learn more about it but my thoughts right now are go for launch!

Playing Devil's advocate then, what would you rather see the money spent on?

Cheers

Dave

Dave,

At this stage every follow up mission to find water on the moon has come up blank (or dry if you want to be humerous). Therefore we have no chance of refueling at site. A completely different style of craft would be required with fuel from earth brought up in stages and not by the shuttle which will have been long gone by then. Nasa has no plans for a servicing vehicle, I think, to replace the shuttle.

As for a funding project I would go for the Jupitor Icy Moons.

Kieran

Oh boy! where do I start with this one?

The first moon misions were done in the days before health & safety man was issued forth from Safety Mom. Nowadays NASA wont fart without a diaper (just in case soiling of many trousers is involved). Regardless of Bush's intentions I think this is a noble cause. Forget about the muppet in the whitehouse, good science can still prevail.
The first moon landings were a spectacular success, but read up on the reality and you see how close they came to spectacular failure. The risks that were taken then would never be acceptable nowadays, and this gives us an insight into the future of space travel for humanity. If we are ever to leave this planet for Deep Space (read anwhere further than earth orbit) we MUST land on the moon again with acceptable risk and little or none of the seat of the pants stuff that was inherent in the Apollo missions.
To put a man on the moon and GUARANTEE his safe return would be a HUGE step for mankind, last time round we just got lucky, had we (NASA) continued it was only a matter of time before we lost the whole shebang; and that would have set back manned space programs indefinitely.
The fact is currently that it is about 34 years since we last had a human walk on any other piece of the solar system. PLEAAASE don't let politics stop this now. Whatever Bush's reasons are, we should push them aside and enjoy whatever fruits fall from this tree. Believe you me! they will be spectacular. Imagine putting current science and technology instrumentation on a permanent base on the moon??
We have so much science and technology now under our belt that was only dreamed of when this was first done in 1969, that the results could only be "incroyable".
My advice is keep shtum on motives and ride the next wave of discovery.
After all NASA has only recently announced to attempt a service mission to HUBBLE in 2008, this can in no small part have been influenced by Bush's statements about the moon/mars.
We have to live with the politicians that we idiots install (read general populus, as astronomers don't vote for corrupt idiots (or do we? read Bertie et al.) Anyway enough of politics - you get what you vote for, and what you vote for reflects your populus. (reminds me of the movie Dumb and Dummer).