NASA rattles the tin for an extra $1.6bn to keep 2024 lunar hopes alive US President Donald Trump has put at least some money where his mouth is and requested an additional $1.6bn to land US astronauts on the Moon by 2024. The cash (subject to approval) comes in the form of an amendment (PDF) to the president's initial $21bn FY 2020 budget request for NASA and, as one would expect, the agency has …
Could a moon base be legitimately based on Trumpton?
I mean, it's a few people wandering between fewer secure dwellings, one person responsible for producing energy from the surroundings and another mysterious pair of characters occasionally traveling in a vehicle "there and back again" to an undisclosed remote outpost ... probably very high altitude and military ... to check whether the opposition have established a beach head.
It's all prepared ... they even get there via a rotatey ejector contraption at the start that could be a prototype space elevator ...
With the current quality of CGI surely nobody would notice anything out of place ...?
Cost of animation, £20m, save a packet for the wall, nobody really dies due to budgetary constraints or incompetence, Trump gets a fictitious piece of moon estate named after himself and everyone's quids in ... even the conspiracy theorists can chew over the "is it or isn't it CGI?".
In case you were wondering where that extra $1.6B is coming from:
"However, three sources told Ars that, as of Monday, the White House plans to pay the additional $1.6 billion for the lunar program by cutting the Pell Grant Reserve Fund, which helps low-income students pay for college."
I'm usually a huge fan of space exploration, and returning to the moon is an inherently exciting thing.
For some reason, though, I'm not excited at all by this. I can't think of a rational reason, really. Maybe it's because it really seems to me like everything is falling apart here on Earth, and I'm more concerned with putting our resources into addressing that.
'funding it that way'
I think I understand that you'd rather not see funding for education reduced. I'd agree with that.
If government (any government of any country) wants to spend money on a new project it either has to take more in tax, borrow from it's trading partners or cut spending elsewhere. The first option is rarely popular and the second can lead to longer term problems including more of option three - but at least that will be for a future government to sort out. The third option is basically a matter of priorities and not everyone will agree on those.
Economically successful countries educate their citizens.
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