[poindexter]

What flame? I'm with you all the way. In fact, I'll go further. We should never have gone to the moon in the 1960's. We should have spent that time an money to build spacefaring _infrastructure_. Inexpensive, reliable lift to LEO. A space station whose purpose is to assemble and launch space-only craft. A moon landing whose purpose is to found a moon base. Lunar energy, metals, and oxygen extraction from native materials. A moon-based super telescope. Etc. Instead we played tag with the moon...we built just enough single-purpose hardware to touch the moon and run back home. Now we need to start all over again...40 years later! Ugh!

[thepainster]

That sounds like a worthy plan to me. However, it is hard for me to forget the emotion I felt when Armstrong walked on the moon. I was 12 years old at the time and living in England. I stayed up all night watching it on TV.

It was a different time back then and we were still in the middle of the cold war. Landing on the Moon and coming back was a great technological achievement for the USA and NASA. It captured the imagination of the nation and the world. Going to Mars would have the same effect today.

[Prof Engineer]

space ping

[Cincinatus]

We should never have gone to the moon in the 1960's. We should have spent that time an money to build spacefaring _infrastructure_.

But Apollo served another purpose -- it really had nothing to do with the Moon or even space flight in general. Click HERE.