Reply #42: The Fonz has jumped the shark. No, seriously.

[hunter]

Going "Back to the Future" um, I mean "Back to the Moon!" using 1950's missile technology would be just like that.

There are plenty of guys who restore old railroad equipment and streetcars; machines that were high technology a hundred years ago. But they don't pretend they are pushing any new technologies and they will even do their best to preserve the flaws and quirks of the old technology. A lovingly restored antique streetcar fitted out with a modern regenerative solid state motor controller just wouldn't be right.

Our current tools for reaching earth orbit are primitive. They are in every way the technological equivalents of toxic smoke belching coal fired steam locomotives. Since these machines are currently the only thing we've got then the Russian engineering approach of "make the damned things work" is by far the best. You want to get into space? The safest craft is a Soyuz. There's little need for anything new unless it encompasses some radically new technology -- technology nobody has. (Or maybe you believe there are aliens hidden away in some Area 51 freezer...)

I love space exploration. Unfortunately we are somewhat frozen in our past and limited in our perspectives. The next great innovations in space travel probably won't occur within the confines of current space programs. These innovations are going to happen in someone's lab, probably a lab researching some obscure and curious phenomena on a shoestring budget.

If we truly want to get ahead and into space we need to be funding this basic kind of research and not simply throw money at projects that are expensive rehashes of older technologies.

The current space technology needs to be kept alive, so yes, keep feeding the space station.

And yes, this same technology could be used on the Moon or on a long dreary and dangerous trip to Mars, but what's the point? Putting more human footprints on the Moon, or footprints on Mars is vanity. It's not research, it's not progress.

When we've developed the technology to make the trip to Mars in two weeks or less, maybe then it will be worthwhile and exciting to send some humans along for the ride. But a two year Mission to Mars or a Moonbase Alpha using current technologies is just a slow tragedy in the making.

Let's do the basic science and engineering first and make the trip exciting.