Word: lunare
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...there's plenty of reason for cautious optimism. After trying to reinvent the technological wheel with the dangerous and temperamental space shuttle, NASA is returning to what it does best. The hardware and crew for the lunar base will be sent into orbit atop comparatively reliable, disposable boosters, based on the sturdy and powerful engines of the shuttle and long-extinct Saturn boosters. The lunar orbital vehicles will be souped-up Apollo command modules and the landers will be similarly updated lunar excursion modules - the lovable, buglike LEMs. Astronauts on Apollos 15, 16 and 17 already showed that lunar rovers...
...Space watchers could thus be forgiven for being wary Monday, when NASA announced its plans for a manned moon base in the south lunar pole, a settlement that it says should be up and running in 2020 and permanently occupied in 2024. A manned space program that has done nothing but circle the harbor of low-Earth orbit since 1972 - losing 14 astronauts to accidents in the process - hardly seems likely to pull off something so daring, especially when it's got an 18-year deadline in which funding and governmental enthusiasm for the project could easily melt away...
...Even more promising - if far more speculative - is the mission profile for the crews. All of the Apollos landed near the lunar equator, a comparatively easy target for first-time visitors who don't plan to stay too long. A moon base would have to be built in the harder-to-target poles. The perpetual sunshine in most of the extreme north and south means plenty of light for energy-producing solar panels; the perpetual darkness in the shadowed polar regions means a steady supply of water ice, which can be harvested for consumption and fuel manufacture. Currently...
...There are other, trickier challenges that would have to be overcome. Part of the justification for a lunar base has always been that the moon is rich in helium-3, an isotope of common helium that could serve as fuel in eventual fusion reactors. Astronauts could, in theory, mine the stuff and ship it back to Earth. That's fine, but first we have to, well, invent the reactor. What's more, as the beleaguered crews aboard the International Space Station have discovered, sometimes just maintaining your ship can take all your time and the mission itself - scientific research, mining...
...first lunar landing program, from the inception of NASA to the final, Apollo 17 landing, spanned four presidents - Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon - and repeated changeovers in Congress. The same steadfastness will be required of present and future political leaders if the new ships are to get off the gorund. Anything less than a multi-generational commitment to the new program will waste the government?s money - and try the public?s patience...