On 9/20/2011 8:46 PM, Matt Wiser wrote:
A friend of mine has put it as follows. Were the Apollo missions
going to be the equivalent of the Vikings' journeys to the New World,
or of Columbus'. It appears to have been the former.

It would, if this Administration has its way. Fortunately, there are members
of Congress in both parties who feel differently. Charlie Bolden keeps
getting asked whenever he goes to the Hill to testify about lunar return-and
the answers he gives don't satisfy the members of the relevant congressional
committees.

We're going to steal the Selinite's gold and silver, and drive them off
the Moon to be resettled on Mercury?
If Cortez had come home to Spain with his ship's holds bulging with New
World rocks and soil, he would have not been very popular.
In fact Columbus wasn't very popular with the stuff he showed up with
after his first voyage. "Where's the God-damn pepper? Where's the
God-damn cloves? That's not a porcelain cup, it's a God-damn seashell."
"I have the skin of a strange green lizard also, your majesties."
"And we will soon have the skin of a strange green Italian sailor..."

Pat