[neverdem]

It is interesting that NASA can now view the moon with Hubble, but when they were asked to do so a couple years ago they said they could not.

Maybe Bush had not yet renewed interest in manned missions, or the funding wasn't available?

[RightWhale]

The story was that the moon is too bright and would ruin the Hubble sensors. Now the moon isn't too bright. If funding will affect brightness levels, and it may, it might be that NASA just got smarter since the new moon landing program was approved.