[herbie]

If Neil Armstrong had smuggled a bag of gold nuggets and secretly sprinkled them around for Buzz Aldrin to "discover" we'd already have a Moon colony........

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

bootlegga bootlegga:

I think investment in science is a win-win - look at the space race, technology invented to put men on the moon are the foundation of many crucial pieces of technology we now rely on.

You know me. I am all about the science. I am also about putting money where it will do the most good. If the National Research Council wanted to explore Newtonian Gravity though a whole new research project, I would raise my eyebrow. We've explored gravity for hundreds of years. We aren't likely to learn anything new about it.

Now, getting children out of poverty and into STEM fields, that would be a good use of money. We are part of the new initiative to put a permanent base on the Moon. We will need people in 10 - 12 years to participate. Let's fix the problems we already have, before exploring possibilities that others already have.

While I was being facetious about alien artifacts when I said it above, that doesn't mean we can't learn something by further exploring the Moon. It's a big place and it's only partially been explored, so who knows what is up there?

Until a few years we ago, we weren't certain that there was water on the Moon, and after a NASA mission we did. As I'm sure you're well aware, water is important for space exploration because it can be turned into both oxygen and rocket fuel.

Maybe we'll find large deposits of deuterium up there. Or maybe we'll just learn how to run a rover around the Moon. Or maybe a Canadian rover mission will inspire a generation of Canadians kids to go into STEM so they can invent something cool or explore some distant place.

No matter what we find or don't find, exploration has all sorts of side benefits, so I'm all for this mission.

[DrCaleb]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Or maybe a Canadian rover mission will inspire a generation of Canadians kids to go into STEM so they can invent something cool or explore some distant place.

And if they are still living in poverty, they will never be able to realize that dream. That's the problem we already have. Not enough people getting into STEM, and the ones that do go into it may drop out due to lack of funding.

[Thanos]

In this fallen age you can probably encourage more people to get into STEM by showing them how to fully monetize some sub-moronic smartphone app than you can by clowning around with a half-assed space program.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

bootlegga bootlegga:

That doesn't mean we can't learn something by further exploring the Moon. It's a big place and it's only partially been explored, so who knows what is up there?

There is a lot to learn. Unfortunately, some people are closed minded and don't see the big picture. The answers to everything lie in the stars.

-J.