Op-Ed: To the moon, again, with good reason
This is NOT a good look for our country at this historic moment. The president has decided he’s going to put a man on the Moon and then he’s going to blow it off as a failure. That’s what the president is saying.
The problem with this idea is that it is not true. If you want to get to space, you take it slowly — and you do it the right way — and eventually it wins. And once you’ve got there, you don’t want to go back because you don’t want a repeat of the mess you’ve just made.
The idea of going to the Moon, or anywhere else really, was discussed in the 1960s for America to have a real presence in space. America had an opportunity to step up and be a leader — and step up and do big things — then. It didn’t get to be that way.
That was the plan, and this administration has abandoned it. The president is now saying, “We’re going to go to the Moon. We’re going to do it on the cheap, but we’re going to leave it up there and then you’re going to get mad at us.”
I understand that, and it makes perfect sense to some people, but I don’t think it makes sense to anyone who actually understands space policy. So I think it’s time we get that administration to the Moon.
There’s no question that we’re ready for it. We’ve got the resources and the know-how; we just need the political will, and I think we’ve got it, now.
— Bob Zubrin
The first astronauts in space
In 1962, with the help of the U.S. Congress, the United States Congress appropriated $25 million to NASA to send a limited number of astronauts into space. To qualify, an astronaut had