h (Rand Simberg) :

On 15 Dec 2004 02:09:11 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Tom"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Pete Lynn wrote:

1. moon firsters(moonies): We can refeul on the moon and then head
to Mars!

No one is seriously proposing that.

Oh yes they do. We are not talking about people who want to go to the moon
first because they have sat down and though carefully about it. We are
talking the moon nuts who look at the moon the same way Zubrin looks at Mars.
In both cases we are talking about people who may be smarter than us but
have a mental block when it comes to thier key issue.

2. Moonies: We can test all our mars technology on the moon first!

Another strawman. Some technology can be tested, but the issue is
learning how to do things on another world only three days away
instead of months away.

But still it is the claim given by the moon fanatics. It is important to
remember we are not talking about most of the pro-space population. We are
talking about the fanatics in both the Mars-First and Moon-First camps.
Neither side wants to look at the good arguements given by the other side and
while thier both represent a small percentage of the pro-space they tend to
be the loudest and push thier ideas where ever possible.

Earl Colby Pottinger

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