Little Wolf's World

The item that we are looking at here is the newly proposed moon missions. NASA is stating that we should be able to reach the moon by 2018. (13 years from now) I find this very exciting.

I vaguely remember the first moon landings. I was only 4 at the time, but I remember watching the news coverage. I was allowed to stay up late that night to watch the coverage, unfortunately I was a small child and fell asleep only a short time before the actual moon landing occurred. My father was a big space program fan, and for some odd reason it has rubbed off on me. I remember having the 3 foot tall Apollo stage rocket model. It opened up to reveal the lunar lander and it would separate in to the various segments of the vehicle. (I also remember how upset I was when it got broken several years after my father had passed away.

I have followed the current space program with interest, but have been very disappointed with NASA's ability to sustain the program at a high level over the last 20 years. I remember when the shuttle program started, we were to have a fleet of shuttles, and on would be launching every month, they were already talking about the development of the second generation of shuttles long before the first launch. They even had some design concepts. That idea has long since gone away. The two shuttle disasters have lead the space program in to a sort of slow retrograde. I have to say I was skeptical that Bushes announcement about the future of the space program with first returning to the moon, then the mission to Mars. I have found that as we move further into this new program I am getting excited.

My concern is still there though. To many people, and a lot of Republican and Democratic law makers, have missed the point of the space program. To many people no longer see the future advantage of the money spent (invested) today. The other concern is the concept of a space shuttle/apollo on steriods hybrid technology to accomplish this return. Why does this concern me, well for one thing I think that it takes away the developement of new technologies for the future. We are relying on 'old' technology to resolve the future issue. Lack of innovation. These are the types of things that may eventually doom the space program.

The big thing that is exciting me. New experiments and tests and other things that will be conducted when the first new lunar mission is launched. One thing they are talking about is developing the ability for the astronauts to develope the ability to 'live of the land.' They intend to do this with new equipment that will help the astronauts develope fuel, water and other resources while on the moons surface. The reason for this, a Mars mission is estimated to take a minimum of 550 days, and if this is the case the astronauts will be required to be able to do much more with much less on this type of mission.

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