NASA's moon base: Boondoggle or springboard to Mars?

The planned lunar outpost could be a "baby step" toward learning to live on another planet--or it could be a money pit.

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[Macsaresafer]

It's sad that

Americans have such short memories. Much of the technology we
take for granted today came about because of the space program.
There's every reason to believe that more effort spent on space
exploration would lead to even greater benefits. When you consider
how much we're spending bridges to nowhere and other pork, the
space budget is miniscule.

[Robadude32]

Yes

I totally agree. We have many more things to discover.

[chuck_whealton]

Re: It's sad that

You make a good point.

Another point that I would consider valid is that unless we change how we live (humans in general), we're going to need another place to live.

Hopefully, there's another one out there. I look at it as we have to start somewhere.

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[Pongobongo]

So much potential for the moon...

Mars is fascinating, it's true. But mainly to the small scientific community. Everyone on Earth has gazed up at the moon and dreamt of the possibilities. Just compare the responses of the America public to the Mars Rover missions to those of Apollo 11 touching down.

Hubble is amazing to be sure, but most of our imagery and discovery still comes from ground based observatories. Imagine building such observatories on the Moon; no atmospheric twinkling, no tectonic vibrations, and no sunlight on the dark side.

Besides the Moon offers fuel for future missions, less gravity to fight on liftoff (to Mars maybe?), and no environmental reasons to limit nuclear power options. We could even use the Moon as a remote, and dead quiet, listening post for information send from probes and rovers.

If you ask me, the International Space Station was the REAL boondoggle. The Moon was there the whole time...