Dr. O wrote:

> 
> "Steve Dufour" <stevejdufour@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:744cc401.0401082215.3a397a71@posting.google.com...
>> NASA plans return to moon
>>
>>
>> By Frank Sietzen Jr. and Keith L. Cowing
>> UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
>>
>>
>>
>>     NASA plans to scrap its space shuttle fleet to pay for the
>> agency's new plan to return to the moon and develop human space
>> exploration systems, senior administration officials said.
> 
> Unfortunately, this sounds like another 'footprints' mission. There isn't

Like dogs are missing around to mark the territory ?

In the old days, Norwegians were similarly 
missing in the Antarctica....

:-)

reinert

> a real long-term vision of exploration or commercial exploitation. The
> thing I fear most is that once people land on Mars, interest in the space
> program will falter, resulting in another long gap between it and the next
> human space venture.
> 
> What worries me even more is what the impact of this will be on any
> COMMERCIAL manned space exploration (i.e. tourism, mining, colonization)
> efforts. Does anyone have a clue? Could it be that the X-Prize follow up
> will simply be deemed irrelevant because it's dwarfed by the manned Mars
> effort? Will it dampen or even kill the market for commercial rockets
> (non-military vehicles)? How about venture capital not being awarded to
> some guy who wants to build a commercial manned orbital vehicle?