not to extract the one critical bit on bush from an article on the the international space station, but: "The Moon, experts say, has now taken on the role of steppingstone. 'Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth's gravity is expensive,' Mr. Bush said in his speech. 'Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the Moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost.' Many experts are skeptical of those claims, saying Mr. Bush overlooked the large energy costs of getting fuel and rockets to the Moon. Previous NASA studies for Mars missions have seldom if ever used the Moon as a launching pad because that would take about twice as much energy as going from the Earth or an Earth outpost. 'The president and some of his advisers appear not to be aware of the implications,' said Saunders B. Kramer, a veteran aerospace engineer. 'It's worse than a pipe dream. It's nonsense.'"

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rach [ 02/05/2004 16:49]: i am very close to peeing my pants laughing.

Evan [ 02/26/2004 23:37]: There was this one cool idea in a book once that had low cost moon tents. Stretch polyethylene across a small crater and cover it with a foot or two of melted moon-water. Or pee if you pee your pants laughing. The liquid was to be a shield against the persistant bombardments by mini asteroid particles. In a moon mood now. Gotta go to the Hall of Meteorites to adore the space diamonds.