Sunday, November 14, 2004
Going back to the Moon?
President George W. Bush hit off the election year with amazing rumors of plans to return to the moon, and send a manned mission to Mars. This comes up at a time when China has made its first launch into space, and plans for more in the coming years. Being a general skeptic of the Bush administration, I believe this is just a move to pull in votes from people who want more effort and money to be invested into NASA.
Even though the United States went to the moon in the 60's and 70's, it wouldn't change the fact that such an undertaking now would be costly, time consuming and dangerous.
Even if Bush were reeelected under these promises, nothing says that Congress has to accept the notion and foot the bill. Some critics claim that Bush is simply doing this to show the world that our space program isn't a failure, and nothing else. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree with that statement, even though I would like to see a permanent base on the moon and Mars in my lifetime. I'm a bit skeptical if it will happen. We shouldn't have dropped that program when we had it running back in the 70's. What were our representatives in Congress and our President thinking? ¶ 5:44 AM
President George W. Bush hit off the election year with amazing rumors of plans to return to the moon, and send a manned mission to Mars. This comes up at a time when China has made its first launch into space, and plans for more in the coming years. Being a general skeptic of the Bush administration, I believe this is just a move to pull in votes from people who want more effort and money to be invested into NASA.
Even though the United States went to the moon in the 60's and 70's, it wouldn't change the fact that such an undertaking now would be costly, time consuming and dangerous.
Even if Bush were reeelected under these promises, nothing says that Congress has to accept the notion and foot the bill. Some critics claim that Bush is simply doing this to show the world that our space program isn't a failure, and nothing else. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree with that statement, even though I would like to see a permanent base on the moon and Mars in my lifetime. I'm a bit skeptical if it will happen. We shouldn't have dropped that program when we had it running back in the 70's. What were our representatives in Congress and our President thinking? ¶ 5:44 AM
