January 2, 2009

To the Moon!

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TO THE MOON!….Bloomberg reports that the space race may be heating back up. Only the players have changed:

President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

….The potential change comes as Pentagon concerns are rising over China’s space ambitions because of what is perceived as an eventual threat to U.S. defense satellites, the lofty battlefield eyes of the military.

I’m not sure which is worse: that this suggests Obama is buying into an arms race with China, or that Obama is buying into the zillion-dollar manned moon landing boondoggle. If this report is true, I guess the only question left is which strained excuse he’ll use for continuing the moon program. Helium-3 mining? Staging site for mission to Mars? The Chinese will throw rocks at us if we let them colonize the place? Or will he use the excuse du jour: it’s great stimulus for our broken economy? Feh.

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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