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The race (back) to the moonPosted by Tim Johnson

Sun Oct 7, 10:35 PM ET
 
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made headlines recently when he predicted that Chinese astronauts would land on the moon before U.S. astronauts can return there.
 
In light of what’s turning out to be a global moon race, with Japan, India and China all take part, here is what Griffin said Sept. 17 at a forum marking NASA’s 50th anniversary.


“I don’t think people broadly understand how capable today Russia, China, India are, not that we need to regard any of these people as adversaries or that Europe and Japan are, and that it lacks only the decision to do it for those nations or societies to do exciting and prominent things.”


“I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are. I think when that happens, Americans will not like it, but they will just have to not like it.”


Such a feat will give China a huge boost, he said, and mark a setback for the U.S.


“We will see again that nations look up to nations that appear to be at the top of the technical pyramid, and they want to do deals with those nations. It is one of the things that made us the world’s greatest economic power. So I think we will be reinstructed in that lesson in the coming years, and I hope that Americans will take that instruction positively and react to it by investing in those things which are at the leading edge of what is possible.”


According to this web site, there’s a lot of regional activity going on in space.


Just last Thurday, Japan’s Kaguya probe successfully attained lunar orbit. The probe is part of the largest lunar exploration program since the U.S. Apollo program in the late 1960s and early 1970s.


Even as Griffin reassured NASA employees that he is fighting against further layoffs, he reiterated that NASA expects to land a human on the moon no later than 2020.


By then, the lunar surface may have Chinese footprints.


China is planning to send an unmanned orbiter (Chang’e 1) to the moon perhaps as soon as this month, and then send a rover to land on the moon in 2012. China expects to land humans on the moon before 2020.


Japan is also expecting to send a manned lunar landing mission to the Moon around 2020.


India expects to launch Chandrayaan, an unmanned lunar orbiter, by 2008. They expect to launch their first astronaut into space by 2014, with a manned lunar landing mission by 2020.


Russia and Germany have announced unmanned lunar orbiter missions, both around 2012. No manned missions have been announced, however. 


The race (back) to the moon is on.
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Now we are talking about a subject that sticks in my craw to no end.  I actually can understand the space program in so far as we need the satellites and need to repair them.  I can even understand the arms race even though I don't agree with it because we (the world) have enough arms to blow ourselves out of the sky.
But spending mega billions to send people to the moon or to orbit Mars or whatever other foolish thing they want to do, just infuriates me!  It is a waste of money that could do more good and give so much relief elsewhere.
We know what God did when foks built the Tower of Babel.  If he wanted us on the moon he's have put us there instead.  If the moon had any resources that we could cultivate, God would've made it available to us.  We've been there and there is nothing there.  So what since does it make to race to return there?  Other than it would make us the "winners".  In my opinion it is just idiotic.

It's called power. Power over all of earth and the attempt to take power away from God. It is a crazy idea.

Amen.

You could have made the same case against Isabella financing Columbus.

Would the money actually be used for relief? I doubt it.


They used to say "If God wanted man to fly he'd have given us wings." Following your path we wouldn't have airplanes.

There may well be resources there, and they are available to us if we want to go after them.

Having said that, I believe the Lord will return before we ever get out to Mars or the rest of the Solar System, much less the galaxy or universe. Everything not done for Christ is a "waste of resources" in that light.

Not at all. God gave mankind the earth for our domain not the moon or other planets. God told us to subdue the earth so Columbus was doing just that.  ;)



You are probably most correct on that. It would be like many other such things that end up making some rich person richer.

 
That might actually be a good thing. Without airplanes they wouldn't be flying to the moon either.  :D




Exactly.

Amen to that.