Editor's Note: Whenever I write an editorial piece my hope is to stimulate discussion. It doesn't happen often; today's reader seems mostly passive, and that's a shame. The aerospace community, however, is a different animal. The return to the Moon has strong advocates as well as strong opposition and the parties do voice their opinions. You'll find letters and comments posted following the piece. If you have some thoughts on it too, email me at sladejim@aol.com.

In the interest of carrying on a discussion, I will reply when I think a reply is called for. Just keep the discourse civil, please; I refuse to be rude..and I won't publish rudeness. I did enough of that in my active career. Nobody hears you when you're shouting.

My friend, Gene Cernan, once told me that he thought we had gone to the moon before it was time. Strange words from the last man to walk there, but that's what he said anyway.

In Gene's retrospection, the moon should have come after space station was fully developed. That, of course, would have been a logical world. But the Apollo program and its companions, Mercury and Gemini, were the chief factors of a technopolitical war and logic played no part in it. President Kennedy said we must get it done, and it was done.

Apollo was good for the nation because it stretched things; technologies, industries, imagination. It built on the knowledge dragged out of World War 2 and the rocket and jet research that came with it. The Bell X-1 that Chuck Yeager flew was a rocket; the X-15 that Scott Crossfield helped develop used steering thrusters and titanium skin; rocket powered ejection seats came from the early SR-71 series. Space suits were common objects in that world. We got the V-2 rocket and several important scientists from the Germans. So, the engineers who staggered at Kennedy's vision regained their composure and started rounding up what they could find.

It was a crash course.

Gene Cernan's comments have always stuck in my mind. Long ago, they and other factors I have observed since have forced the conclusion that the Apollo landings may have been as much as we could have done at the time. If we had stayed on the moon beyond Apollo 17, what more could we have done with it? Did we have the technology then to build permanent bases? Could we have supplied them readily? What better transportation did we have than the simple two-man Lunar Landers and the tiny Apollo capsule? Not much. Not very much at all.

So, all things considered and the technopolitical war won, maybe it was good to just show 'em our stuff and then go away for awhile.

Whatever, that's how it happened.

Now they're talking about going back to the moon. This time, I think they've got the stuff.

Using technologies gained from shuttle and space station experience, along with the best parts of Apollo, engineers have begun to put together a program that they hope will make a return to the moon possible by 2018. Don't hold them to that date since Congress and the White House are involved, but that's the "aim point."

Here's the hardware concept. The "single" rocket's (right in picture) first, or lower, stage is a five-segment, solid fuel shuttle booster. The second stage is a liquid fueled rocket that can boost the Apollo style crew capsule to the space station or to a place where the capsule can fly on its own to dock with the other .. cargo carrier .. rocket. The cargo carrier is the big one on the left. Its first stage is equipped with two of the five-segment shuttle boosters strapped to a center, or first, stage that sports five of the Apollo-style J-series liquid fuel engines. Lit together, those engines can start 130 metric tons on their way to the moon. The crew rocket is dubbed Ares 1 and the cargo rocket is Ares 5. The "5" is reminiscent of the Saturn Five moon rocket.

Ares 5's second stage is some more of the Apollo-derived technology. This system will launch with an updated Apollo-style lunar lander on its nose, go to orbit, dock with the crew module, an expanded Apollo-type spacecraft, and re-light to shove the now-combined lander and capsule out of Earth's gravity. Sound familiar? Just like Apollo.

The combined stack, lander and crew module, arrives in lunar orbit, the lander breaks off and a crew goes to the lunar surface where they will be able to "camp out" in the lander for extended periods of time.

Permanent bases will be ferried to the surface to be put together out of the holds of the landers that bring them. Exploration is the name of the game post-shuttle, and the moon is where we'll have to go to learn to do it properly with human crews. If you want to go to Mars, the moon has to be the training ground. Frankly, in some aspects the moon is a rougher place to live than Mars: it has total vacuum, no atmospheric shielding from the sun, temperature extremes ranging from 250 below to 250 above, no weather to move things around..it's beautiful.

Lunar Liftoff looks like Apollo's, too. The lander's upper stage flies up from the base, returning crewmembers to the Apollo-style capsule orbiting the moon, and they shove off for return to earth.

Eventually, you may see tours of duty similar to the space station..as much as six months at a time. While exploring the lunar surface thoroughly, engineers and scientists will be trying out the equipment they'll need on Mars. Once they're confident about the moon, Mars is a matter of transportation.

The long pole in the lunar tent is supply..particularly water. Fuel cells can furnish some water, but large quantities of it will still have to be carried to the moon..at 8.345 pounds per gallon. It would be very nice if, on one of their rambles, they came across a frozen pool of the stuff in some crater at one of the poles. They intend to keep an eye out.

If we're going back to the moon, let's get on with it. First, though, you have to finish the shuttle program by year 2010 completing the space station in the process. Then, they hope to test fly the crew module while they put the rest together. Converting one of the current shuttle launch pads to the way it was when it first served as an Apollo platform, they hope to start test flights by maybe 2012.

At least, that's the plan this week.

Stand by.

Jim Slade 7/26/2006

Discussion

Astronaut and Author, WALT CUNNINGHAM responded to the editorial this way:

Walt Cunningham: Jim Slade seems to have bought the "Moon, Mars and beyond" hook, line, and sinker. To comment on just one paragraph:

"Permanent bases will be ferried to the surface to be put together out of the holds of the landers that bring them. Exploration is the name of the game post-shuttle, and the moon is where we'll have to go to learn to do it properly with human crews. If you want to go to Mars, the moon has to be the training ground."

WC comments: Biggest fallacy of the vision statement. Return to the moon is "Mars light." It's for those unwilling to commit to a Mars program.

JS: The editorial continues:
"Frankly, in some aspects the moon is a rougher place to live than Mars: it has total vacuum, no atmospheric shielding from the sun, temperature extremes ranging from 250 below to 250 above, no weather to move things around..it's beautiful.

WC: Also, totally wrong. What if the moon should really be compared to the top of Everest or the South Pole? We still return to Everest and the South Pole, but we don't try to set up refineries there to make gasoline.

I feel certain we will come to our senses after a couple of landings.

Jim Slade replies: The fact is that the moon program, or something like it, is how you are going to advance human flight after the shuttle program winds down and space station is completed. It probably is "Mars Light," as you say, Walt; as friends with great experience remind me, it's doubtful the White House or Congress would buy straight into the full-blown Mars Program you seem to be suggesting..but they might go for the moon and wait to see how things turn out. In any case, it would be exploration and..yes..in my long-held opinion, that's what we should be doing.

If you have a comment, send it to: sladejim@aol.com

Click here for a previous Left Seat column.