Seriously bEric Chomko wrote:

: So effing what, fool? I'm not critiquing NASA's manned space program
: because of state colors. I'm critiquing it because it's a waste of money.

Yet, you have no wherewithall to drop the blame on the proper doorstep.
Why? Too affraid, too timid or too clueless?

Too sane to share your bizarre fixation.

: The point is not that the environment is prototypical, the point is
: that it doesn't connect at all with real external goals. We're going
: to the moon because we're going to the moon, apparently.

No, we are going because it is time to go back.

This is vacuous and circular.

New technology with the
same Apollo goals is still more than Apollo.

And still less than rational.

And the third time might be
in 30+ years with THAT new technology. But eventually the goal is to make
the moon self-sustaining as a colony. Do you not agree?

I do not agree that that is an end in itself. It may be a means to
an end, but colonies need an economic base. ESAS will do little to
bring lunar colonization closer, because it doesn't address the economic
barriers.

And to make a colony requires next steps, be they baby or otherwise...

But the idea that ESAS is that next step is a fallacy of linear
thinking. Kind of like the idea that the first step to reaching
the moon is climbing trees.

So do you believe Apollo was a waste? Shouldn't have happened, etc.?

Right. Going to burn me at the stake now?

Paul