[XBob]

15 - "Haven't you been reading all the threads about how Bush is going to spend even more of our money on a new moon mission?"

What money?

We don't have an extra Trillion+ dollars to get to the moon again. We don't even have the money to get to the space station.

The government burro-crats run what's left of our space program now, and there is no way we will be able to afford to go to the moon again.

[XBob]

In fact, it is beyond our capability to get from the VAB to the launch pad again.

If the crawlers break, we have no way to make new ones. Marion Power Shovel, which built them, is now out of business and we no longer have expertice/skilled workers to make the giant forgings and castings necessary to build new ones.

[XBob]

ping

[RadioAstronomer]

We don't even have the money to get to the space station.

We were discussing this very thing at work on Friday. One of my colleagues started with project Mercury and stayed with NASA all the way thru the mid 90s. He saw the heyday of NASA and was one of the people "on console" during the Apollo 1 fire. He is also skeptical we have the money to create the infrastructure needed for another manned shot to the moon in the near term. The big question is, if this program does get underway, will the next congress kill it not unlike the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC)?