How to Colonize the Moon without breaking NASA's budget

[frasercain]

Simple, we take the project away from NASA and give it to the Air Force instead.<br /><br />According long established international law and tradition, an imperial power first plants it’s flag on a newly discovered land, thereby claiming it as sovereign territory belonging to the power that first explored it. The task then becomes first and foremost a military problem of defending the territory against all would be usurpers and claimjumpers.<br /><br />Think about it: the first wave of naval exploration of the Pacific were mostly undertaken by navies and whalers. The scientific expeditions came later, after the ocean had been mostly charted, and an infrastructure of resupply bases put into place.<br /><br />Right now, the U.S.A. is a party to the Outer Space Treaty that’s been in force since 1967. This treaty is a disaster--in my opinion anyway. According to the treaty, the Moon is basically a scientific International Park, rather like Antarctica. Any country is free to explore and exploit the Moon, for peaceful purposes. The treaty explicitly bars national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, or by means of use and occupation, or any other means.<br /><br />The OST is inherently unfair to the nation that spent the treasury and blood to get there first—the USA. We planted the American flag there in several places. Therefore, the whole Moon is American territory. Since the OST is onerous, we can in all good conscience unilaterally withdraw from the treaty. The American's task will then be to defend the Moon from all comers. They can visit, and do whatever—after they pay us a fat licensing fee. If anyone lands on the Moon without American permission, their astronauts will be captured and sent back to Earth in handcuffs.<br /><br />Thus, the first continuously manned presence on the Moon should be military bases. Once military bases are established, NSF scientists will be able to piggyback on the military installations. Here the model is the Arctic, rather than the Antarctic,