Posted on 08/23/2018 6:01:26 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Bridenstine thinks NASA should have taken an opportunity to pursue the moon almost a decade ago.
"If you go back to 2009, the United States, through NASA, made a critical discovery, which is the moon has hundreds of billions of tons of water ice. To me, that should have changed our direction immediately," he said. "From 1969, when we first landed on the moon, up until 2009, a lot of people believed that the moon was bone-dry. In 2008, the Indians did an experiment and they realized there was water ice on the moon and then we did an experiment and realized how much water ice could potentially be on the moon at the poles.
"So the question is — during those 40 years, we missed that. What else have we missed?"
Now, as NASA administrator, Bridenstine is carrying out President Donald Trump's direction of returning astronauts to the moon.
"We need to get to more parts of the moon than we have ever gotten to ever before," he said. "When you look at the Apollo program, we had six landings, all in the equatorial regions of the moon, and we didn't get the full perspective, the full understanding, the science and the knowledge."
Bridenstine also said he sees the moon as a way forward to points farther out in the solar system.
"I think a lot of people miss the fact that the moon represents an amazing proving ground for all of the technologies and the human-performance capabilities that are necessary to survive on another planet and the ability to develop in-situ utilization abilities," Bridenstine said. "The moon represents the capabilities to do that activity for the first time, rather than doing it on Mars for the first time, where you can't come home for another two years."
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Will the rockets be powered by “bang zoom”?
Are they taking nominations?
Let me guess. The first inhabitant will be named Alice.
I volunteer my ex-wife.
My vote is for Hillary or Obama.
You and about a billion other guys.
We missed that little tidbit for 40 years, eh?
Obviously the 0bama-inspired Muslim outreach program has born fruit!
I thought Alice was already living there.
I think whoever went would turn into a boneless chicken without all the gravity ...
It won’t be NASA they are too busy writing bureaucratic policies, pretending globull warming exists and making sure layers of bureaucracy gets paid, not taking reasonable risks and actually exploring the universe.
One of these days.
Many years ago as a young adult, shortly after seeing the first Khan episode for the 5th or 6th time, I espoused sending our worst criminals one way to the Moon with plenty of air tanks and freeze-dried food and Tang, and after 25-30 years grant citizenship to the survivors and/or their offspring.
So do I ...
Ping.
Ha. Love you to the moon and Don’t come back.
Some people underestimate the cost and difficulty of permanently living in a hostile environment. I mean, the per person cost is astronomical - no pun intended. If the cost were ever represented on a per-thousand person basis, people would realize the cost is astronomical.
That took me a couple of minutes, but I finally got it.
Good one!
LoL
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