To boldly go ..

...where everyone else is going. That sums up, at least partly, our moon mission plans; we can't neglect the night sun when India and China are charging full bore toward it. If they're hopping around and hitting 3000 yard drives onto the fairway by the Sea of Tranquility, we can't be sitting at home talking trash about how well our IRA is performing (invested in unmanned space exploration of course, as great as that may be) and how we'll take that lunar vacation just as soon as we reach our next savings goal. Nonetheless, those investments are much more important scientifically than redoing what was done thirty years ago (as a friend quite rightly pointed out since my last comment on this). Thankfully, according to this article there is more to the plan than that. The long haul is expected to be difficult, and the technology we have now is not expected to take us on the real vacation we're penny pinching for: Mars. The old-technology, hop around on the Moon trips are exploratory, to be followed by more advanced missions aimed at setting up a base on the Moon, almost as a dress rehearsal for Mars. Now my friend certainly wouldn't change his tune due to this article; he thinks it is technologically the wrong time to take this trip. I agree with this in part; some of the technology isn't ready for sure, but some needs to (and will only) be developed by actually going somewhere in space. Moreover, I think the politics, however unfortunately, are important and need to be addressed. There are real economic and, quite frankly, prestige issues with India, Japan, China, Russia and anyone else doing manned exploration of the moon while we have almost no one (perhaps the ISS) in space. That just won't cut it in the eyes of the people of the world if we want to consider ourselves a (the) leader in space exploration. However technologically backward it seems for the moment, putting people back on the moon is a good idea and will pay off in the long run.