China may be worlds ahead in building lunar legacy | SF Chronicle

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China may be worlds ahead in building lunar legacy
U.S. hampered by economy, short-term plans, analysts warn

Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Monday, January 26, 2004

President Bush's call for sending Americans back to the moon revives an old dream: the hope of turning our sister world into an inhabited, commercially active Grand Central station of the solar system, from whence rockets will cruise to the outer planets and perhaps beyond.

Lunar colonies have been staples of popular fantasy since the pulp science-fiction magazines of the 1920s. During the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s, NASA officials dreamed of turning them into reality. The 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" was not idle speculation: Its images of huge lunar colonies reflected space engineers' serious hopes for solar system exploration.

But in the real political and economic world of 2004, Hollywood dreams aren't enough to persuade savvy taxpayers to bankroll an all-out assault on the moon, many space analysts warn. Rather, they say, lunar bases must become self-supporting economic entities rather than monetary black holes that would croak without subsidization from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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[judge_smales]

1. And now you know

why President Moonbeam wants to go to Mars.