Putting People on the Moon

I picked up the paper today and what do you know, with the nation running a huge deficit, with most state governments broke or about to go broke, with American business on various levels getting its butt kicked by the foreign competition, and with the gap between the wealthy and the poor getting worse each year, hey... what we need to plan for now is a permanent lunar space station. Sure, that makes a hell of a lot of sense, right?

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120400837.html

You got to be @#%&ing kidding me.

Some important passages from the Washington Post article I think:
"NASA officials declined to put a price tag on what will clearly be an extremely expensive venture. But they said that with help from international partners and perhaps space businesses, the agency would have sufficient funds to undertake the plan without any dramatic infusion of new money."

I hope that goes better than how the Bush administration proposed that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for a substantial portion of the war.

"Dale said she will travel extensively next year to these nations and others to see how they might participate. One project she mentioned as attractive to NASA and possibly others is the deployment of an array of telescopes on the dark side of the moon to see far into the universe."

Thousands of Pink Floyd fans will be there with you, babe. Bring your finest stash.

"While NASA is counting on international support and funds to make the lunar settlement possible, the track record for international cooperation in space is mixed. The space station -- which was initially conceived and designed by the United States -- has taken far longer to assemble than planned, and at a far greater cost. Some of the 14 international partners have also chafed over American priorities for the station -- a situation that Dale said NASA hopes to avoid in the moon mission by bringing in partners very early in the planning process."

I'll put this succinctly: corporate/governmental boondoggle.

Strangely enough, these plans remind me of a great song by the Drive-By Truckers titled "Puttin' People on the Moon":

Mary Alice had a baby and he looked just like I did
We got married on a Monday and I been working ever since
Every week down at the Ford Plant but now they say they're shutting down
Goddamned Reagan in the White House and no one there gives a damn

Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon
While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon

So I took to runnin' numbers for this man I used to know
And I sell a few narcotics and I sell a little blow
I ain't getting rich now but I'm gettin' more than by
It's really tough to make a living but a man just got to try

If I died in Colbert County, Would it make the evening news?
They too busy blowin' rockets, Puttin' people on the moon

Mary Alice quit askin' why I do the things I do
I ain't sayin' that she likes it, but what else I'm gonna do?
If I could solve the world's problems I'd probably start with hers and mine
But they can put a man on the moon
And I'm stuck in Muscle Shoals just barely scraping by

Mary Alice got cancer just like everybody here
Seems everyone I know is gettin' cancer every year

And we can't afford no insurance, I been 10 years unemployed
So she didn't get no chemo so our lives was destroyed
And nothin' ever changes, the cemetery gets more full
And now over there in Huntsville, even NASA's shut down too

Another Joker in the White House, said a change was comin' round
But I'm still workin' at The Wal Mart and Mary Alice, in the ground
And all them politicians, they all lyin' sacks of shit
They say better days upon us but I'm sucking left hind tit
And the preacher on the TV says it ain't too late for me
But I bet he drives a Cadillac and I'm broke with some hungry mouths to feed

I wish I'z still an outlaw, was a better way of life
I could clothe and feed my family still have time to love my pretty wife
And if you say I'm being punished. Ain't he got better things to do?
Turnin' mountains into oceans Puttin' people on the moon

Turnin' mountains into oceans Puttin' people on the moon