I love the idea, in general, but have one bit of confusion.
Why did it take America less than 1 decade to go from NOTHING to the Moon in the 60's - with primitive computers & electronics & no space experiance, but this new plan is going to take more than a decade to get to where we were 30+ years ago? And now we have lots of experiance & much better technology?
I think there's a good possibility that some private enterprise effort will beat NASA back to the moon.
I bet the the "tinfoil" moon hoax people are loving this.
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Primitive by today's standards, no doubt. You know, I read once that all the computation, software, and other thinkery that went into the 1969 mission would fit on a single CD.
Funny thing is, kids today can't go to elementary school without their parents thinking they'll be morons without high speed laptops.
Humanity did alot of neat stuff before microchips.
We have to do an Environmental Impact Statement on the moon first. Gotta make sure no lunar field mice get harmed when our lunar landers touch down.