submitted by a reader
No they haven’t; neither have they any usable water!¹
These are just hypes and excuses trying to rekindle taxpayers’ interests in unnecessary manned flights to the moon, with a new commercial twist.
But beware also of the blue-ribbon panel, which equally condemns flights to the moon, while recommending that NASA should be privatized beyond anything previously envisaged.
Prodded by a powerful corporate lobby, certain elements within NASA are trying desperately to please a group of super-wealthy investors by way of resuming flights to the moon.
Is there really water on the moon? So what!
Dark shadows obscure craters on the moon’s south pole in a picture from NASA’s 1994 Clementine mission. Scientists have long suspected the moon might have water, possible hidden in these permanent shadows. Now a trio of satellites have confirmed that water does exist in trace amounts over the entire lunar surface, scientists said in September 2009. Picture courtesy NASA. Caption: National Geographic
The group, which includes the bosses of companies like Google, Oracle, Saatchi and Saatchi, Virgin Galactic, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Space Exploration Technologies Corp … [Tattaglias will guarantee security, Mike,] … are planning highly lucrative commercial space flights, and ultimately tourist moonshots.
They see NASA as an indispensable “partner” in their joint venture. NASA (the US taxpayer) would fit the flight bill, most of it anyway, while the Virgin Atlantic consortium, assuming they keep the same name, would reap unprecedented profits, making ever larger fortunes from the flights, as they continue to rape the moon.
Unfortunately, the abuse of the system won’t stop there. One day soon, everything to do with space would be highly commercialized, and some of the things you currently take for granted, like free access to space photos and satellite imagery, become available only at a price.
A blue-ribbon panel … called the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, headed by former Lockheed Martin Corp. Chairman Norman Augustine … calls for sweeping changes in the way NASA does business and envisions a dramatically expanded role for private enterprise in human space flight in the coming decades beyond anything proposed previously.
A new report by the panel “calls for sweeping changes” in the way NASA is administered and “envisions a dramatically expanded role for private enterprise in human space flight in the coming decades beyond anything proposed previously.”
[Edited by FEWW.]
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1. REM: Probably traces of water do exist on the moon because water exists in many celestial objects in the Universe. Even comet nuclei are made up of ice, dust and other particles. But, would the water excuse make going to the moon good science anymore than mining comets for water does?
Fire Earth 