I just love this new Bush plan to militarize green cheese! It’s all very Ray Bradbury even. Let’s put the Pentagon on the moon!
The way this is announced is to try to convince people that all their tax payer money is not going for warfare from way up high, but will just be an innocent little moon rock expedition. Of course, none of this will actually go as scheduled. By the time 2020 Space Odyssey roles around, the US will have a national debt of about a google’s google of dollars.
Not My Tribe
The Myth of Middle Ground
Tony, it reminds me of Robert Heinlein’s short story “The Long Watch” in the collection “The Green Hills of Earth”. Very militaristic theme, scary but makes the point of personal choices that should be the hallmark of a “patriot” in or out of the military. Good read.
I remember the focus of moon exploration in the first place was to keep The Dirty Reds From Establishing A Nuclear Base on the moon, and instead put up American ones. Seems it takes very little fuel to drop something from the Moon onto Earth. There’s even a device called a mass driver, like a hopped up conveyor belt that accelerates things like (yeah, right,!) the mineral wealth of the of the moon out of orbit, then drop into Earth’s orbit.
The fact that nuclear devices could be kept there with a minimum amount of security, for instance. the maintenance stuff they have to do on the delivery rockets, which is made more necessary and more difficult by the security issues and add the atmosphere and gravity.
This was given over to the Air Force with the low reporting deal, all they would say on this issue was the Soviets wanted a Lunar Base for just that reason.
The biggest problem is finding enough free water to use for generating oxygen.
Of course it would be spectacular intruder proof.
Anybody coming from earth would have to take 3 days of a slowly advancing very bright fireball from the rocket engines.
Nothing like being able to sneak up on ’em.