NASA : Moon exploration plans not dead

NASA could solve it's problem about a luna return by joining up with China,Europe,India,Japan and Russia and pool the combine resources and spresd the money and other risks to insure a less costly moon mission.

Hurray! We can still go to the moon. Given the success of the mars rovers; NASA should come up with some moon rovers. They'll be cheaper than regular manned explorations; and could explore for a few years! And they keep us competitive in the moon exploration field.

We've been to the moon, been there do it, its time to reach further out, the next logical step after the moon landings was to continue on to Mars, man or woman should have been on Mars years ago, in the eighties. we should now be talking about going to the Moon Europa - Juipter. and onward towards Saturn..... but no, stuck in our own backyard.

Thats like saying we have done heart surgery, been there did that time to move on? We still do heart surgery and still make new heart surgery advances.

Thats like saying we have done heart surgery, been there did that time to move on? We still do heart surgery and still make new heart surgery advances. no its not. its like saying if we had continued on from the Apollo manned missions with mans exploration of space we'd have been past the moon and at least on Mars. nothing to do with medical procedures.

@stevewinn: Ridiculously idiotic & irresponsibly short-sighted is such a comment like yours stating we've ["been there" done that]. Really, would any logically thinking person really believe that a scant 12 total humans who spent, in totality, less than two days combined time in EVA out on the lunar surface. Not all that time was spent in exploration, as a significant portion of that time was utilized by the 12 Heroes in setting up various scientific equipment & experiments. Al six landings were at the lunar equator & the farthest distance travelled from the LM by the few Lunar Rov... [More]

@stevewinn: Ridiculously idiotic & irresponsibly short-sighted is such a comment like yours stating we've ["been there" done that]. Really, would any logically thinking person really believe that a scant 12 total humans who spent, in totality, less than two days combined time in EVA out on the lunar surface. Not all that time was spent in exploration, as a significant portion of that time was utilized by the 12 Heroes in setting up various scientific equipment & experiments. Al six landings were at the lunar equator & the farthest distance travelled from the LM by the few Lunar Rov... [More]

I found this of interest and thought of Steves last post. Is Mining Rare Minerals on the Moon Vital to National Security? From: http://www.space.com/news/moon-mining-rare-elements-security-101004.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo The seemingly barren moon may actually be a treasure-trove of priceless resources: a potentially bountiful, mineral-rich – yet untapped – cosmic quarry. Still, few see the moon as an alluring mining site, ripe for the picking of rare elements of strategic an... [More]

well if your easily satisfied with missions to the moon. and there is nothing wrong with that, so be it. But me, am only satisfied with the very best. you've totally missed the point i was making. if the space race hadn't stopped. how far out in the solar system would we have reached? NASA Despite their success rested on their laurels, even Gene Kranz as acknowledged this. you only have to listen to the old Astronauts, they are proud of what they achieved but the sense of disappointment that we never went beyond the moon is clear for all to see. but let me just say this, i have the best intent... [More]

So why keep going back into low earth orbit, been there did that over and over?