Cheaper, less carbon emitting, energy sources do have the potential to improve the human condition, in my view. If you don’t believe me, ask the folks in developing countries, or people on limited incomes with increasingly high power bills.

If we get the sense that (i) China plans a permanent or at least long-time recurring presence on the moon, and (ii) somehow a Chinese moon is not in our strategic interests, I think we could easily land a man on the moon within five years. There is no need to have a man at Cape Canaveral stand ready onboard a Saturn V, waiting to go up.

As for heavy lift capacity, how can we be sure that the capacity withered because of policy error? What if it was our need to launch heavy (>100,000 kg) objects that withered? Relatedly, were you guys sad on behalf of the UK and France when the Concorde was retired?

The problem with the moon shot as a goal was that we lost the capacity we gained with that effort. There was no plan to stay in space, no motivation to do so. The loss was in allowing heavy lift capacity to wither. Should the government and NASA have decided on a longer-term effort, one that built staging areas/space stations in orbit from which assembly could happen for translunar travel, we would likely be much further along in a more permanent presence in space than we are now.

I disagree. If the US had good reason to land a man on the moon and have him return safely, I think it would take far less than 8.5 years to do it. From Kennedy’s inauguration to Apollo 11 was about 9 years. If you count the time from the launch of Sputnik (12 years), it’s even easier.

I am not sure that the “capacity” we lost after the Apollo program – capability for immediate dispatch of humans to the lunar surface – is very valuable on an ongoing basis.

That said, I agree that it is a bit weird to compare “energy” to a “moon shot”.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Having designed and built instruments that were carried on the Apollo moon missions, specifically to study the solar wind, these Obama folks are just nuts.

It’s too bad, but they are taking science down with them.

The real problem is with the current solar trends, not only are we going to have trouble keeping warm in the near future, but the food crops are going begin to suffer from shortened growing seasons. Things no one seems to want to talk about, but are likely to be far more serious than jousting with a myth.