Giant setback for U.S. return to the moon
| August 13, 2009 | 4:01 PM
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Plans to return Americans to the moon by 2020 are just pie in the sky,
a panel of experts will report to the Obama administration Friday. And money is to blame.
With a little over 10 years before the 2020 deadline set by President George W. Bush to return us to the lunar surface, NASA would need to make such drastic budget changes that the panel says it’s not even remotely realistic. One of those budget shifts would require crashing the International Space Station — which isn’t even finished being built yet, by the way — into the ocean in 2016.
Instead, the panel is leaning toward a “Deep Space” strategy that would send U.S. astronauts out on fly-bys to asteroids and perhaps even one of Mars’ moons. Earth’s moon would be a launching point for such missions but wouldn’t really be a target for exploration itself. Neither would the Red Planet because of the steep costs involved.
Yes, we have plenty of problems that could use financial attention here on Earth. Yes, we’re learning lots about the universe from unmanned missions. But this cold, hard slap of moon-money reality is disheartening nonetheless. It will be even more disheartening when China, Russia, India or Japan get back to the moon first.
earth, international space station, mars, moon, space exploration
