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Thursday, December 07, 2006
Jonathan Garthwaite :: Townhall.com Columnist
It's time to shoot for the moon and stay
by Jonathan Garthwaite
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In the midst of the Iraq Study Group report, hearings on the next defense secretary, resigning U.N. ambassadors, and the ongoing war on terror, NASA decided this past Monday was the right time to announce that we'll all be living on the moon in 25 years.

Well, actually, not all of us. But at least four of us.

The fact that so much other news is consuming the evening news shouldn't cause us to overlook the big news from NASA.

The ambitious plan, presented by NASA on Monday, is to begin constructing a permanent base on the moon shortly after astronauts begin returning to the lunar surface in 2020. Within seven years after that, NASA plans to permanently staff the lunar base and send a lunar SUV around the moon on day trips.

The plans to put man back on the moon follow President Bush's bold 2004 vision to retire the space shuttle fleet in 2010, pull out of the International Space Station and establish a beachhead on the moon and head to Mars.

Liberals will surely attack Bush over this plan because — well, they don't know how to do anything else. On the right, many conservatives will complain about the cost of such a program or call into question the benefits of such a program. Their concerns over cost are not unwarranted but the more important concern should be — why have we waited this long to get back on track.

In the 70s, we envisioned the year 2000 arriving with flying cars, robotic housekeepers, and everything else that George Jetson had at his disposal. Personally I took the liberty of swapping in the "Star Trek" teleporter for the pneumatic tubes in my imagination.

It didn't happen quite as I had hoped. Continued...
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Jonathan Garthwaite is the editor-in-chief of Townhall.com.

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Reply # 1
Date: Jan 14, 2007 - 2:37 AM EST
Why travel to space
I am very much a conservative, and a Christian also, but I am very much in favor of manned space travel. Simply put, there are things that are beyond the reach of a market driven economy. At this time historically, space travel is one of those things. Yes it is expensive, and yes it can be rather foolish. But I love to see the innovations that come from people pushing for manned space travel and even unmanned travel. I marveled at the pictures returned from Cassini and Huygens, and Galileo and the Mars rovers as well. I think that there will come a time where some creative innovator will build a resort on the moon but until that day, I encourage our government to push the frontiers of knowledge and exploration to the moon, and when that day comes, NASA should be pushing beyond. Maybe its because I am a science teacher and I see and share the wonder that my middle school students feel when we download NASA material from missions or when I have them design Mars colonies taking into account all of the challenges that would entail, but exploration has always been a human passion, and I do not think God would give us that passion if we weren't meant to use it. Christians can and often do push boundaries in knowledge by the way. Newton revolutionized physics and was a devoted Christian, just as Mendel revolutionized our understanding of Genetics. I as a Christian am not threatened by science, to me the more I learn, the more I see the greatness of my Creator.
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Reply # 2
Date: Jan 8, 2007 - 10:16 AM EST
reply to Lydia
So, tell me what's wrong with my interpretations here? Why should any sort of conservative be in favor of manned space missions? [I'm excluding libertarians from my comments, since they're not really conservatives anyway. Many libertarians are in favor of space exploration.]
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