NASA, What is taking so long?

I really feel like NASA has missed it. We are now celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing on July 20th, 1969. We returned to the Moon several times after that but eventually stopped going in 1972. Why?

What happened? We were on a roll. Did we run out of steam? It’s like winning the lottery and walking away from the prize. We had it all. We had it right there in our hands. We had several successful trips to the Moon and then, nothing…NASA, and I guess Earth and all its people, walked away from it. No thunder, no nothing …

So, here we are 40 years later. NASA has wasted a lot of years and money between then and now. Don’t get me wrong, the satellites sent all over the galaxy are awesome. The Space Shuttle program is awesome too. Outdated maybe, but still awesome and inspiring, granted I wouldn’t take a ride in a 25 year old ship made by the lowest bidders. And, we still have two of the four of them left and they are retiring in 2010.

But back to the moon. Why didn’t we colonize it? We were there. (That is, unless you are part of the 6% of the U.S. citizens that don’t think we put a man on the Moon.) We would have had 40 years of experience and knowledge about our closest neighbor by now and probably discovered many great things about it too. Maybe water? Fuel resources? Scientists now believe that if the moon soil is fired to around 700 degrees it will produce water droplets… Hey, we could have figured that a long time ago if we stayed there.

We had the technical ability back then and could have set up a moon base in sections. We even sent up a rover to drive around on the moon back then. The moon buggy could drive up to 10 kilometers on the surface back then. If we had stayed, we could have explored the entire moon by now with more modern buggies. If we had spent the past 40 years building a moon base we could have had a large population living and existing on the moon. But “no” is what happened…

I am disappointed too… Think of the missed opportunities so far. The moon is like The North American Continent was to Columbus. When he looked out over the ocean he saw exploration, new trade routes, adventure, the unknown… But he took the chance. He and a two other ships with crews taking only what they could fit on board and pushed off… And look what he found … A whole ‘nother world at there… The Moon is our “stepping stone”. Set up camp there and move on to Mars next. The Moon beckons us to come explore it. It’s a new world. It watches over us at night. There are discoveries there that will marvel the eyes. Now we have to wait until 2020 according to a recent NASA article before we go back. That’s too long. By then it will 50 years past the first time we were there. We need to get busy. Cut out all the red tape NASA has in place and go for it. Not check, and double check and triple check all the redundancies they have in place. They have over spent and wasted money. They need to focus on the mission at hand but I think they lost site of that long ago. They fly a 25 year old shuttle system that was originally designed to fly at least 100 flights per shuttle. To date they have lost two shuttles and only have flown 125 shuttle flights. It’s time to bring out the new updated ships. Its time to scale back on the space station. What is its purpose? An outpost? Put one on the moon then. Quit sending small rovers to Mars. Send Astronauts. We have people that are willing to go, to take that leap into the heavens. Let’s send them safely but let’s send them now, not in 50 years. NASA quit taking baby steps. You play it way too safe. We have our Columbuses, many of them that are ready to go, risk and all. Neil Armstrong knew the dangers, he knew the risks, and He knew the odds… But he stepped inside that Roman candle and rode those flames on into History books. So NASA, what are we waiting for? 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-……

chuck