How cool is this? NASA to set up polar moon camp.
Strategically it would make a lot of sense to set up an extensive lunar outputs from which, eventually, missions to other planets could be launched, thus saving on fuel and, to a much smaller degree, time and distance. It would also allow for deeper exploration of the moon itself. Frankly, I think this is just cool as all hell.
Have they decided on a replacement for the space shuttle that won’t get all blowed up from time to time? 'cause, if they haven’t, they can announce that they have plans to go to Alpha Centuari and it’s all make-believe.
All the more reason to blow it up. Stupid moon.
I think that astronaut in back of the rover just Earthed us.
About those 4-person crews: Does one of them Really have to be Barbara Bain*? Because I forsee Mutiny if it does. 
*That Bitch from Mission Impossible. No, not Tom Cruise…the Other one.
As a practical matter, I have serious misgivings about this.
The kid and the dreamer in me, though, thinks that this has to be just about the coolest thing ever.
Except maybe going to Mars. Or the moons of Jupiter. Or Uranus! gigglesnort
Ironic,Hawkins just said we have to start getting serious about vacating this planet we are polluting beyond use. Moon,step one.
Do they know something we don’t know? Is a giant space rock headed our way. I will check NEO and see. …Okay we are safe til 2036.
NASA executives & 'nauts just need to bite the bullet and work the kinks out of space travel as they go. To make it work you pretty much need to go “all-in” and in bulk. And of course, get the government the hell out of the picture.
I’ll admit I am dubious as to the practicalities of the matter, not to mention the scale of the project and the associated mountain of cash it will require, but I’m trying not to let that get in the way of my visions of a big-ass bubble dome housing labs and scientists and research staff and land rovers and all sorts of neat spacey stuff.
They’re still in the initial phases of the concept though, and they seem to be trying to drum up international support and participation before they work out the details and approach Uncle Sam for funding. I kinda hope things go more or less as planned though.
The ultimate irony? A hundred years from now, restarting America’s presense in outer space might be what George Bush gets remembered for and people will praise his foresight and wisdom.
Oh yay! A moonbase! I’ve always wondered when we were going to get around to that.
And I got halfway through typing that last sentence and it struck me what you were referencing in the title of your OP. The Stand - am I right?
~Tasha
Every ten years or so, just like clockwork, somebody announces stuff like this - “We’re going back to the Moon.” I’m underwhelmed.
It’s a little different when NASA does it, particularly after the President has said the same thing.
Okay, so I imagine that Bush was trying to pull a Kennedy, but that doesn’t make it any less of a declaration of policy.
M-O-O-N, that spells Correct. 
The project is still a decade and a half from even beginning, and a lot can happen between now and then – hell, a lot can happen in '09 when the new prez (presuming Bush gets the boot) has settled in and has had time to review matters. Still, it’s on the table in a pretty official capacity, which is further than we’ve gotten with anything of the sort before.
Although a permanent Moonbase would alow for more extensive exploration of the Moon, I doubt it would be useful as a staging point for interplanetary missions. While it is certainly cheaper to lift supplies from the Moon to orbit than Earth, you first have to build the infrastructure to turn raw materials into useful commodities (fuel, food, equipment); until a significant commercial presence already exists in space, it’s hard to see how you could provide the bulk of supplies from anywhere but Earth. (And if raw materials are what you’re wanting for, near Earth asteroids have them in more accessible form without the need to boost from a gravity well.)
There are a few reasons to establish a Moonbase (exploration of the Moon, experience and data in low gravity environments, practice for other interplanetary outposts) and many against the idea (not a good source of supplies, expensive, not a accurate simulation of conditions on Mars or Jovian moons). Whether this actually comes to pass or not is questionable, but right now, it’s just flag waving; no serious proposals or detail trade studies are being done.
Orion is the new transport system which both replaces the STS in its NEO and ISS support functions and will serve as a Lunar mission craft. (Ignore anything you hear or read about going to Mars in such a vessel; that is totally ungrounded glurgage by people who don’t comprehend the fundamental challenges that come with such a mission.)
Whether it “get[s] all blowed up from time to time” depends on how forthright and honest the future NASA culture is going to be regarding risk. NASA of the Space Shuttle issue was both risk-adverse and risk-ignorant; unwilling to accept reasonable assements of risk and deliberately ignoring known problems. The Ares rocket family (consisting of the Ares I and Ares V boosters) is conceptually more simple and, in theory, more reliable than the cantankerous STS/Shuttle, but reliability is a total function of the system, including maintanence and risk mitigation. Time will tell how Orion and Ares perform.
Stranger
I don’t see the advantage here. Why taks mass into the Moon’s gravity well and then lug it back out?
Is the plan to manufacture fuel on the moon?
Barring an amendment to the Constitution or Bush’s desicion to actually become a dictator, he can’t stay in office.
I think it’s more about using the experience of building Moon bases and having long term habitation on the lunar surface to prepare us for Mars missions in the future. IMHO we’ve got to develop new technologies and discover the practicalities of building bases and colonies before ever thinking of going to Mars. The Moon is 3 days away. Mars is 6 months away at best.
I’m not going to get excited about this until well after January '09.
Perhaps not then. He’d have to run against Clinton.
I remember Werner von Braun being interviewed about about a Mars mission during Apollo. He suggested sending six craft, so that they could come to each other’s assistance if needed.