Apollo Veteran: Skip Asteroid, Go To the Moon 191
astroengine writes "It's 40 years to the day that the final mission to the moon launched. Discovery News speaks with Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt about where he thinks the Earth's only satellite came from and why he thinks a NASA manned asteroid mission is a mistake. 'I think an asteroid is a diversion,' said Schmitt. 'If the ultimate goal is to get to Mars, you have a satellite only three days away that has a great deal of science as well as resources. The science of the moon has just been scratched. We've hardly explored the moon.'"
The National Research Council came out with a report a few days ago which found that the inability for the U.S. to find a consensus on where to go is damaging its ability to get there. Bill Nye spoke about the issue, saying, "I believe, as a country, we want to move NASA from [being] an engineering organization to a science organization, and this is going to take years, decades. Now, through investment, we have companies emerging that are exploring space on their own and will ultimately lower the cost of access to low-Earth orbit, which will free up NASA to go to these new and exciting places."
-1 improper invocation of Godwin (Score:2, Funny)
Wow, Godwin's law in only 9 minutes!
Oh, no,no,no. It would have been a Godwin if he said that "Going to the Moon is what Hitler would have done." or "NASA acts like a bunch of Nazis."
But by making an implicit Ad Hominem attack on the GP, you are acting just like Goebbels [wikipedia.org].
Moonopoly (Score:5, Funny)
Skip Asteroid, Go To the Moon
Do not pass the LaGrange point, do not collect $2bn.
Re:Pull a few Billion... (Score:4, Funny)
who said anything about sending air tanks along with them?
Re:Pull a few Billion... (Score:5, Funny)
> and who is going to build these spaceships? Toyota?
I heard that Nissan put a Pathfinder on Mars.