Posted on 11/18/2016 8:34:47 AM PST by BenLurkin
In the spirit of promiscuous speculation, we will float this notion: The moon is back!
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One of the people mentioned in news reports as a potential NASA administrator is Rep. James Bridenstine, Republican from Oklahoma, who earlier this year drafted legislation he calls the American Space Renaissance Act. He's called for a return to the moon as part of sweeping reforms at NASA. Bridenstine has also been mentioned as a potential secretary of the Air Force.
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NASA's Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 succeeded in putting the first men on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and then 10 more American astronauts left boot prints in lunar regolith across six Apollo missions, the last in 1972. No human being has been beyond low Earth orbit since that final moonshot.
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George W. Bush vowed to go back to the moon, and his administration put together a program, Constellation, that foresaw another moon landing in 2020. Obama killed Constellation, saying been there, done that. Congress, however, kept elements of the Constellation package — that big rocket, that new capsule — and so billions of dollars are being spent on hardware that should be ready for launch in the next couple of years.
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Because Congress preserved elements of Constellation, it could be revived under a new administration. NASA has the SLS and the Orion, and to get to the surface of the moon it would just need a lunar lander, maybe paid for, at least partially, by international partners. And NASA has already been talking about missions in orbit around the moon in the 2020s. The veterans who run human spaceflight at NASA put themselves in a good position to re-pivot to the moon if that became politically mandated.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ya mean NASA won’t remain a Muslim Outreach club?
Does that mean NASA’s primary mission to make Muslims feel good about themselves has been completed?
Bull’s eye, there.
>>NASA may go back to the moon<<
Oh, really? Have they discovered a way to safely pass through the Van Allen Radiation Belt?
Great idea! Hopefully they will leave her there!
It’s a nice idea, but unless they can accomplish it in 4 or 8 years, it can be dismantled by the next person in office, or even scuttled if Congress changes hands.
No accounting for those anti-science people who hate the Moon.
Enjoyed watching NASA rocket launches on TV when growing up.
Problem with NASA is that it is another example of federal taxing and spending with no constitutionally enumerated powers to do so.
So NASA should be another proposed amendment on Trump’s amendment list, at least to get citizens up to speed with the idea that the states, not the feds, ultimately call the shots in the USA.
The consequence of not waking citizens up to the constitutional reality that the states call the shots is that it’s only a matter of time before we have another lawless president who works in cahoots with corrupt Congress to oppress citizens with stolen 10th Amendment-protected power of the states and the people.
Kerry has never been to the moon. It’s high time he goes.
Which actually is a better plan...even if you want to get to Mars
The only reason for going back to the Moon, is to tap it for water and minerals to supply raw materials for building a space platform to get us to Mars. The Moon is just a dead rock, no reason to build a habitat there. Mars is a better habitat to terraform into a humanity-supporting habitat.
I love it. She’ll be joined by Janet soon.
I hear our flag’s gotten a bit bleached out.
Might be justified going back just to replace it with something more permanent.
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