“Exploration of the Moon” on The Daily Caller

Russia and Japan want to explore the Moon, and in a big way. (more)

Swallowing its pride, NASA says it wants to learn from future commercial missions to the moon – and it is willing to pay up to $30 million for the privilege. (more)

On the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, President George H.W. Bush capitalized on the excitement surrounding the commemoration of the landmark spacewalk by announcing big goals for the U.S. space program. In remarks delivered at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on July 20, 1989, he said the U.S. would go, “Back to the moon: back to the future. And this time, back to stay,” hinting at the much promised manned moon base that was supposed to have gotten under way in the 1970s. He also said the U.S. would launch a manned mission to Mars. Though Bush’s announcement served to excite NASA and the public, the numbers weren’t pretty. A NASA study estimated the long-term cost of Bush’s plan would be approximately $500 billion — a staggering figure, even when spread across 20 to 30 years. As a result, NASA transitioned away from human exploration and focused on earth and space science. (more)

Those who have had the honor to work in and around the White House understand that in reality, the president has a limited and shrinking power-base. Every day and in almost every way, Congress seeks to weaken that base while transferring more of the executive branch authority to its own body. (more)

It turns out the LCROSS spacecraft’s discovery of water ice at the moon’s south pole wasn’t the whole story. (more)

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, stepping onto the lunar surface, spoke the now iconic words, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” Most Americans born subsequent to that seminal day are not able to appreciate the national pride and world approval shown then for a truly landmark achievement of humankind. And now, 40 years later, these new generations of Americans might just witness the death of America’s human space program. (more)

“We choose not to go to the moon. We choose not to go to the moon in the foreseeable future and not to do the other things, not because they are hard, but because they are expensive, because that goal will serve only to waste our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are unwilling to pay for, one we are unwilling to continue, and one which we intend to abandon…” (more)

The Obama Administration’s revised manned space program doesn’t envision U.S. astronauts venturing beyond Earth’s orbit until at least 2020, and perhaps years later, according to the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (more)

The Chinese space agency could land its first astronauts on the moon within a decade in a move that would mark the beginning of a new age of lunar exploration, experts said today. (more)