The moon in the stars

[dobbins]

An Editorial from Today's Atlanta Journal Constitution<br /><br />The moon in the stars<br /><br />In light of budget and space station woes, total lunar focus might be the smartest mission for NASA<br /><br />Published on: 10/18/05<br /><br />In those heady days of early manned spaceflight when Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepard were household names, NASA's mission was never clearer: Beat the Russians to the moon and establish U.S. technological dominance of space.<br /><br />But in the three decades since that goal was accomplished, the country's manned space program has been purposely stuck in low Earth orbit, using a fleet of aging space shuttles to deliver crews of astronauts to make repairs on aging satellites and sending them to work on a half-finished space station.<br /><br />If you are under the age of 33 — a demographic that constitutes nearly half of the nation's population — you weren't even born when Americans last left their dusty footprints on the lunar surface.<br /><br />Now NASA wants to go back to the future by returning to the moon. It even says it can do so on a pay-as-you-go basis, promising to stay within its $16 billion annual budget. The hope is that President Bush's plan to use the moon as a base for manned exploration of Mars could rekindle the spirit of adventure many felt during the Apollo missions. While robots and probes can accomplish many things in space, they will never substitute for human eyes scanning the horizon from the surface of another planet.<br /><br />But first Bush and his new NASA administrator, Michael D. Griffin, should make clear exactly what our long-range goal is. Answering that question may necessitate some hard choices, especially if the administration and NASA want to pull off a $100 billion lunar re-landing program over the next 15 years while the nation continues to pay for an anti-terrorism war and rebuilding the devastated Gulf Coast.<br /><br />For instance, what should be done with the International Space Station? NASA plans