THe lack of any comments on this site speaks volumes about science education in the U.S.

Sadly, the volume of comments is always greater when a "controversial" issue (like evolution or global warming) is broached. The anti-science crowd comes out & gets righteously indignant. Then they get corrected.

I too often wonder about the lack of comments. Unless a topic has a particular interest to me, I usually am responding to ignorance when posting here.  

Love the moon robots...  they look pretty darn robust!
There are video tapes of the Apollo landers taking off and it didn't seem like the blasted a lot of debris around.  Wouldn't they want their base partially buried anyway?  So I guess this is also the first I heard about some intentional base.  To be honest I barely remember the new moon initiative but I take it from this that things are progressing?!  Last I knew, ESA never really did mention how much water ice their probe found on the moon.  That's the huge question here, but do we want our base close to those area?  The moon is a great resource, but again, if it gets hit by a sizeable asteroid, it is going to shake and the ground will carry the shockwave to destroy any permanent base there.  I remember Apollo reports of tremors, what was it... just from landing on it?  that's hard to believe...

I think we are also lacking the overall plan that might direct us to try those "sling" type platforms that spin with a counter-weight.  The use of tethers to hurl cargo from lower orbit to a higher one and are one of the very few ways I know of to use "energy" and not fuel, to get cargo up and out for whatever missions we choose.  Much like the Navies pre-world war two clung to the past and the ideals of a battle ship, I think the current train of thought lacks the freshness to see other ways of doing things.  It's all fairly basic/primitive thinking.  We really do need a top to bottom look at all options (fly-back boosters etc), and just go do it.  Even if it takes a decade or two longer, what you'd put into place would be far more affective and that's what's really needed.  We've come so far with our advanced composite materials, engines, and computer aided drawing that we really could use a fresh look at things and some organization to list out the options and time tables that exist.  I'm sure it's all moot as I'm sure Nasa knows about such options...  It unfortunately tends to be congressional subcommittees and the president that makes the decisions.  Perhaps something on the level of the UN?  A more global space initiative!  An actually combined and goal oriented plan, not gung ho nationalistic pride?  It's kinda darn obvious that we are literally at a point where we could do what we want.  Having those end goals be right there spelled out is literally all it would probably take.  I think much like an inner intuition draws people to new discoveries, they inherently will know a realistic goal and robust and realistic plans from the farce of just planting flags.  Basically, no one (including I) will be interested until people finally stop worring about what the people would be willing to pay for and jsut saying "this is what we need to do regardless of perceived cost"!  What is it they are even hoping to do on the moon other than go there?  Claiming research just doesn't cut it, and if your ultimate goal is more than that, you need hardware designed for that, not research!  

I personally wouldn't mind seeing a POWERFUL flyback SST the size of a C5!  We've got to understand that a larger size really doesn't take a lot more money to at least design.  The development price tags of the A380 and the newer and much smaller A350 are VERY CLOSE... probably with similar part counts, just larger parts and more of them.  If that is what it will truly take to make space accessible for all sorts of missions than we better get started there!  For even if you are not planning on colonization, any true overall plan would have equipment valuable for many other kinds of roles!  

If we did have such a massive SST... five to ten times the size of the concord, maybe we could avoid the need for heavy landing gear by having it take off on a sled, and land on a rail mounted capturing system that reaches up and cradles them as they come down.  Our computerization which is able to land navy jets on carriers in zero visibility is indeed capable of this and since such mega transports are only ever going to land in two or three places, we could save tons on just the landing gear alone!  Perhaps a central pivoting wing to avoid drag and not need as much heat protection on the way back in?  Perhaps unmanned?  If scramjets aren't ready, lets go with a combination of comercial jet engines and a rocket engine.  Sliding covers can protect the jet engines like on some old NASA pre-shuttle designs.  

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