(CNN) -- NASA Administrator Michael Griffin rolled out NASA's plan for
the future Monday, including new details about the spaceship intended
to replace the shuttle and a timeline for returning astronauts to the
moon in 2018.

The design for the new crew exploration vehicle (CEV) looks a lot like
the Apollo-era spaceship that first took NASA to the moon a generation
ago. It is a similarity that is not lost on Griffin.

"Think of it as Apollo on steroids," he told reporters at NASA
headquarters in Washington.

Under the new NASA plan, a "moon shot" would actually require two
launches, both using rockets derived from shuttle launch hardware.

One unmanned, heavy-lift rocket would transport a lunar lander plus
supplies and other equipment to low-Earth orbit.

Afterward, a second rocket would carry a crew capsule capable of
transporting up to six astronauts into a similar orbit. The two would
dock with each other, and then head to the moon.

The first few missions are planned to put four astronauts on the
surface of the moon for a week, while the unoccupied mothership orbits
overhead.

.. . . . .

OK - the question is "WHY ?". A few people for a few days at
a time ... it's just not worth doing (except to enrich certain
aerospace companies).

While doing the 'final frontier' thing is appealing, there just
HAS to be a little cost/benifit thinking done first. Describing
this particular endeavour as "Apollo on steroids" is quite apt -
because it doesn't seem to accomplish much beyond what Apollo
accomplished, just a little more of it for a lot more money.

IMHO, we should not return people to the moon until they're
in a position to STAY there, with plenty of company. This
means a whole different sort of program - with the first
phases being entirely robotic. First of all, a supply of
water MUST be found and exploited. Secondly, habitats and
equipment for a growing colony MUST be in place. Only then
should people start arriving.

Robots can explore, robots can drill and mine, robots can
construct habitats from imported and natural materials,
robots can assemble equipment - and do it cheaply, safely
and well. Any moon colony should be set up from the get-go
to be perpetually self-sustaining ... because financing it
from earth would be a perpetual and heavy drain on cash and
resources.

The moon is especially suited for using robots. Not only is
the gravity light and the solar-power potential high but it's
less than two light-seconds from earth. This means that
telepresence robots - with human operators or guiders on
earth - can be usefully employed. This will take up the
slack until the electronic intelligence folks come up with
some decent autonomous designs.

Robo-Ants - swarm IQ - may be very useful for exploring,
exploiting and building certain kinds of habitats. Smarter
bots will be necessary to run/maintain certain kinds of
equipment. Field-usable designs seem to still be ten or
twenty years away. We've got the computing power now, but
aren't sure what to do with it. 'Smart' is more than
gigaFLOPS, it's doing the right things in the right order,
'mind' -vs- 'mess'.

Lessons and techniques learned from moon-bots can then be
applied to the NEXT big step - mars.

In any event, it never hurts to put our eggs in more than
one planetary basket, but the next step is to MAKE the
damned basket rather than just shuttle veritible tourists
to the moon and back and watch them do pretty much exactly
what their predecessors did before. The 'next step' isn't
one of volume, doing more of the same old crap, but a whole
different paradigm - colonization. THAT will be worth the
money and effort.