Replies

This 'program' is starting to have the feel of window-dressing. It's galling to me, a space junkie, but spending the next 15 years surveying the Moon (via unmanned vehicles) seems for a landing site seems counter-productive - we've got at least a few landing locations picked out for the Apollo missions that were cancelled. Granted, it's likely a manned spacecraft for this mission will take at least 5-8 years to design and construct, but still, I suspect there's better uses of the money than surveying the moon.
And, to address another point of contention in this thread, while there's lots of 'new technology' out there, I'd be inclined to re-use as much of the Saturn 5/Apollo vehicles as possible (although I suspect that we could make the electronics packages using somewhat more modern equipment) - it worked before. And, knowing how current NASA requirements are looking for other spacecraft, I personally would be more comfortable using the original Apollo equipment rather than some of the new stuff they're likely to want...

-SV