Henry Spencer wrote:


If you're convinced that the program is going to fall apart after ten
years, and you want to get the best possible value out of it before then,
going somewhere new for your flags-and-footprints exercise makes sense.

I doubt we'll even get back to the Moon, I picture this whole program
going the way of most of the NASA spacecraft ideas of the past twenty
years; they do a mock-up, they start building a prototype, they hit a
technical or financial snag, and they dump it.



If you at least *hope* that it's going to be an ongoing effort which makes
systematic progress over time, you want to pick up where we left off. The
Moon is still largely unexplored; Apollo barely scratched the surface.



It's also boring. "Magnificent Desolation" would be a great description
of the Gobi Desert, but at least there you have air and neat dinosaur
fossils to look for.
Although the Moon would make an obvious place to set up a base for
further exploration of the solar system, this plan goes nowhere near
suggesting that or the degree of funding it would require.

Pat