Europe's Space Agency Wants To Do What NASA Can't 136
coondoggie writes "The European Space Agency is moving forward with a plan to land an autonomous spacecraft on the moon by 2017, with the idea a manned vehicle could land there sometime in the future. It's a mission NASA had on its roadmap before the current budget debate, but such plans seem doomed now. The ESA is now seeking proposals for a lunar lander that would land on the south polar region of the Moon, which possible deposits of water ice, heavily cratered terrain, and long periods of sunlight make promising for explorers and scientists, the agency stated."
April fools (Score:3, Funny)
Heh, I just got it. Took me a while.
Re:manned space exploration = fail (Score:3, Funny)
...before blowing our cookies over manned trips to the moon, which add NOTHING of scientific value and solve no problems.
You put it better than I was about to.
I think people expect that in 20-30 years after manned space technology has progressed, we should be commuting to office parks on Mars, shopping at malls in the ionosphere, and living in pleasant gated communities on the far side of the moon. But only if NASA keeps shooting cans of spam into space.
Re:manned space exploration = fail (Score:2, Funny)
Fuck Mars. It doesn't multitask and there's no Flash support.
Obligiatory (Score:4, Funny)
Like understanding metric?
Re:NASA Can't? (Score:1, Funny)
'When the mission was to put men on the mooon, the atmosphere was much like the atmosphere aboard a warship.'
Well they still had all those Nazis running the shop, that helped.