Project Moon Base

I perceive your point...however, there'd most definitely be a return on investment, both in terms of spacecraft design, which should've been done nuclear, like KIWI, NERVA, and PLUTO, perfected in the 60s, for God's sake...then, there's the whole thing about mining the moon, using the back for noise-free SETI searches realistically, a good many other advantages I could recount...it's just that I see similar pollyanna fantasy about "terraforming Mars"...yeah...right...in NASA's dreams...they can't even build a spacecraft able to go back and forth to the Moon carrying more than a few guys...I mean, really? Terrforming Mars? Please...pardon me while I retch, even at seeing some garbage like this about the Moon...gimme a break....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmxPRCyR-Co

This was perfected in the 60s, for God's sake, and NOW those geniuses are trying to FINALLY just START a lunar base? REALLY? Please...pardon me while I barf....

I perceive your reasoning, and, obv, wish it'd happen, truly...it's just that, having seen as much science and engnrg as I have, and trust me, I've genuinely seen a good deal, between constant internecine warfare on this rock, along with cosmic ray damage, and the fact that there's no spacecraft yet developed than can haul a large enough crew and/or supplies back and forth thus far, I assure you, I've given this God only knows how much serious thought, read all the Gerard K O'Neill stuff from the 1980s about space stations at the Lagrange (or "L") points, and can virtually promise you, doom and gloom aside, as I'd said, it just simply ain't gonna happen...it'd take the entire collective scientific output of every single industrialized country on the planet for a project of that scope, and, given the human predilection for weaponry development, short of getting a SETI broadcast as a motivator, or ET showing up suddenly, neither of which is gonna happen, either, the likelihood of it happening before, I'd say, give or take, maybe the 23rd or 24th centuries, is pretty close to just about zip, I'd say, honest...I don't like the necessity of saying it, please know that...to do a project like that would need a nuclear powered spacecraft with a crew approaching the 100 range, as well a virtual army of LEMs to go down with cargo, let alone building habitats, and with cosmic radation exposure thrown into the mix, which is no small problem in space medicine, I assure you, trust me, it just simply ain't gonna happen, QED, finis, the end...I wish to God it would, truly, I do, however, I give it the proverbial snowball's chance of ever happening at all, quite frankly, honest, sad though I am to have to say it...I worked with former Apollo guys, they told me the whole story of all the hardware segments they were involved with, I've absorbed every iota of the whole story over the past sevl decades, and I've just quite frankly despaired of the species ever getting the intellectual and/or sociologic wherewithal to EVER make it actually happen, even for just the Moon, let alone Mars, which, as I'd said, I think, is absolutely purest fantasy, honest....

It was just a little over a hundred years ago when the Wright brothers successfully flew an aircraft. Then 66 years later we landed a man on the moon. 50 years later and we have the ISS which has been successfully orbiting the Earth for over 20 years now. We've got 40 year old satellites powered by spent nuclear fuel (uranium) that are still operational outside of the Heliosphere of our solar system relaying data back to us and we've landed robots on Mars that have been actively exploring a planet we hope to set foot on in the near future. I really don't think colonizing the moon is much of a leap considering how quickly humanity has advanced in technology in just the last century. We'll be back on the moon in the next 5 years excluding any major setbacks and I firmly believe colonizing it by 2050.

I don't mean to be such a doom and gloom naysayer, honest...I just despair of ever seeing any real U.S. space program, ever again...I studied it, and studied it, and studied it, up, down, left, right, backwards, forwards, inside out, upside down, and sideways, till I could recount the whole thing in my sleep, honest...and what've we got to show for it? Shattered dreams, horrible tragedies, and museum pieces...so, as I'd said, I'm not meaning to be a wet blanket about it, it's just that I worked with guys who helped on Apollo before my total perm disability, and yeah, that part's absolutely the truth, they told me all about it, I assure you...that's when I see stuff about the 50th anniv, or la-la land pollyanna fantasies like the one I sent in here, I just quite honestly despair of the species, ya know? Just food for thought, at any rate, honest....

When I was a kid, maybe you too, we watched all the launches for Mercury, Gemini, Apollo in the schools I was in, on the tube...that, given something like this article, only makes it worse, on reflecting about all that, to tell the truth, honest, somehow, all the more wistful, ya know?