Reply #36: They are both experts in their own fields -

[RaleighNCDUer]

and if Armstrong is saying Obama doesn't know what he's doing talking about space exploration, I'd tend to believe him - just as I'd believe Obama saying the same about anything Armstrong might happen to say about international law and the G8.

We need to be able to use the moon as a way station - a permanent base (not some low-orbit jumble of pods that will fall out of the sky in 20 years) where we can work on and perfect the problems of building structures on and under ground on hostile planets. Better to make any mistakes 3 days away from earth, then to find out there's a problem 3 months away from earth.

The first stop on the way to Mars should be the Moon.