twenty eighteen (2018) ? seriously?

astronauts back on the moon in twenty eighteen? are you kidding, nasa? just telling us something outrageously far away so if you do it faster you'll look like heroes?

what's wrong with like--i dunno--two thousand six or something? have we forgotton something since we did it the last time? misplace the blueprints? we (meaning the citizens of the united states of america) need to start thinking bigger and making better use of our strengths.

sometimes i think americans have forgotten what it means to be american.

while i'm glad the space program has at least been giving the appearance of moving again, i think we can do better than two thousand and eighteen, neh?

the current shuttle orbiter design is ancient and unreliable. we neet to create a new design for a (truly) reusable spacecraft, but until that time arrives, it does not mean that we shouldn't be twiddling our thumbs.

there is a lot to learn, still.

we need to send up more automated tests and experiments and probes to increase our knowledge, and we should also be experimenting with extended stays out of earth's gravity and protective magnetic field. (this pdf should give you the idea...)

we should (and can) put people on the moon very much sooner than 2020 or 2018 or any other such number. by then we should have a permanent colony (or reseach labs or something) on the moon. our natural satellite can serve as a playground for learning how to best build habitable environments outside of earth.

we've had our terrestrial biodomes and the international space station as stomping grounds already. now we need to branch out to the moon (and mars once we solve certain problems associated with extended space flight--the effect of microgravity on the human body (possibilities include so called 'rotational gravity' which is centrifugal force) and the secondary radiation caused by particles being emitted from radiation shielding when it's bombarded (which could be dealt with through new plastics being developed, layers of shielding on a different scale than previously planned, or possibly even through magnetic field manipulation).

interesting times we're living in, but i hope we can start making some real progress soon.

--cid

0wn yourself