In his briefing before the National Press Club, Administrator Bolden implied that we will be going to the Moon despite the acknowledged demise of Constellation. When we go, and under what arrangement will depend on three important bodies; the White House, The Congress, and a NASA-Private Sector-International partnership. Partnerships are a sharing arrangement in both benefits and costs. This is the key to a renewed and expanded Moon mission that is completely designed as a stepping stone from which humankind will leap out into the solar system.
This is the "missing goal" that everyone is talking about; actually griping about! We need to turn our disappointment into an energizer of this mission. We do not wait! We take advantage of Congress' rants and snarls during the budgeting process and get them focused on this mission concept. Who are we? We are SpaceTweeps and we must now begin to organize the biggest, most important and most vital tweetup in our history.
NASA, ESA, and the private sector must be made aware of the rising public support for the Moon base mission. How do we get rising public support? Again, SpaceTweeps band together and use the Internet to drive home both the idea and to stimulate its full support.
We have resources and design visions that come from both our earlier space missions and our initial work on Constellation.The original program is cancelled, but the ideas, concepts and technology are NOT! The "i" in America stands for "innovation" and that is exactly what we must demand from the White House, the Congress and the new space exploration partnership discussed above.
So, lets get started. Lets get with folks like Neal Wiser and his SaveNASA site to begin to launch a full-fledged advocacy for this concept. I hope you agree. I hope you will join in. We cannot wait, we must start immediately and it must be ceaseless, precise, and most of all from our hearts. We can win. You do believe that don't you? You do want us to go into space in this century, right? Well.....?
Mr. Knight is correct. Each program built on the former and expanded the envelope of knowledge and capability. Mercury proved humans could function in orbit, a thought some at the time deemed impossible. The Gemini program expanded both the size of the vehicle to accommodate a crew of two and ultimately proved the feasibility of rendezvous and docking, Apollo drew on the lessons learned in both programs and was ultimately successful in "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth."
In my opinion it is vital to our long range presence in space that we learn to function for long durations in low gravity and to learn to "live off the land" so to speak. We can spend upwards of six months at a time on the ISS, learning much, but there is no possibility of using this small outpost as a springboard to Mars.
I believe that a human presence on the moon, building an infrastructure to support long-term off earth capability is a must.
Thank you again.