An independent panel created by the Obama administration announced last week that it (surprise!) disagrees with a plan pushed by former President George W. Bush to return to the moon with manned missions.
Instead, the panel members said, NASA should be focusing on new, and presumably more expensive, places to explore, such as nearby asteroids or one of the moons of Mars.
Whatever direction is taken, it's up to NASA officials to prove the billions of dollars being spent on the space program is worth it, especially at a time when those billions could be well-spent on a wide variety of items to help the citizens of this country.
We agree with at least some of the commission's report; we see no urgent need to return to the moon. Been there, done that. If Mars is the ultimate objective in the next 20 years, then let's focus on that. Planning another manned mission to the moon only wastes precious time, technology and money.
What will we learn from sending a manned mission to the moon, or one of the many nearby asteroids? What valuable scientific information will mankind gather from such proposed billion-dollar jaunts, and will it be worth the billions invested? The days of launching a mission to do anything simply to say we did it are over or at least they should be. There's far too much money involved.
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Minot (N.D.) Daily News
