Europe Planning A Lunar Base By 2030. (Got Priorities?)

"The final words that Gene Cernan spoke before stepping on to the tiny craft that would ("allegedly") carry him back to Earth are simple and sobering:

'We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return with peace and hope for all mankind.'"

That was in 1972. That’s more than 40 years ago. (Again, "allegedly") We haven’t been back."

And, now, THIS...
(Cue Ominous Music)
Europe Planning to Establish Lunar Base by 2030*

*So much for the National Parks' (& other delicate natural places') advice of: 

"Take Only Pictures.  Leave Only Footprints."

Here's a Question: "Who's going to win the Lunar Landfill Contract?"
Or, will they  follow that Old Standard practiced on Mother Earth:
"Outta Sight, Outta Mind.", and just jettison their (countless tons 'o) junk into SPACE?

Also, consider how many Billions of Dollars/GBP such an endeavor will cost.  

Meanwhile...  Back here on Planet Earth:

Thousands of children are suffering from starvation; in need of medical care; without safe, non-war zone places to live; haven't safe drinking water or adequate education, etc..  And, there's so much toxic & lethal (and nuclear) waste scattered about the globe because "modern man" has been and STILL Is treating the Earth and her oceans like their own individual and collective "Magical" Bottomless Garbage Can...

But... Hey, Don't Be A 'Buzz-Kill'!

Never mind all THAT!  Having our own "Moon-Base ALPHA" Will Be So COOL!

I'm counting to 10, now... (Breathe)

smh

Shedding Light On The Dark Side Of The Moon, Or NASA(irbrush)

Shedding a little light onto the dark side of the moon:

You all know how there's a delay in broadcast TV, so network censors can edit out controversial content...

Well, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) not only has a delay, they also have separate, scrambled, encrypted communications channels and highly-skilled photo editors at their beck and call busily editing 'controversial content' out of broadcasts/images sent back from space.

Hmm...  Could something in NASA's original, unedited content be the reason why, at one time, the U.S. gov't. planned - unilaterally - on launching and detonating a nuclear bomb on the moon... all without checking with anyone else, first?

I kid you not.  Feel free to look it up, if you don't believe me.

The Moon as Moron's Mausoleum... An Obscenely Bad Idea.

This is Our Moon.


This is A Mausoleum.

Any Questions?

This item is from both the "Someone Should Make A Law" File and the "Epitome of Idiocy" File...

I recently learned that there are a growing number of companies (for profit ones, of course) who will be offering customers/schmucks who cough up $10,000 the "Offer of a Lifetime"...

Well... the "Offer of Your Deadtime" might be more accurate.

For that chunk of (chump) change - any/everyone who would sign up for this is a 'chump', in my humble opinion - companies with names that sound like pharmaceutical sleeping pills, like "Celestis", will (or so they claim) send a gram of your beloved/hated one's cremated remains - inside a metallic tube - to be blasted into space on a rocket and then crashed/landed on the surface of our Moon.

Let me repeat this, in case you missed it...

These crap-for-brains companies want to launch unknown numbers of rockets into space... wasting a helluva lot of (toxic) rocket fuel and adding to the already disgusting amount of man-made space junk that is currently orbiting and - sometimes - falling back down to Earth... just so they can make money off of morons/marks who are blessed with way too much green stuff and lacking in functional
gray matter.

Before they do this... I have a few questions:

1) How many rockets/landers will they be launching/crashing?
10...100... 1000... or as many as the surface of the Moon can be covered with?

2) Will there be a discount for senior citizens?... For student's?
What about for working-class people without money to burn?

3) In lieu of a mish-mash of the deceased's dust... Do I have the option of blasting a particular body part of the deceased to the moon?

4) Is anyone over-seeing these programs?
How about regulation? How do they plan to assure the safety of those of us 'left behind'?

And, lastly...

5) Who the F*@% Gave Any Person or Company Permission To Use The Moon as a MAUSOLEUM?

Jeez, people!

This is The Moon! Our One and Only Satellite! It has no twin. And there are no other celestial bodies even remotely close enough to us that we can actually reach and stand upon... not that we should do that too often, either.

Are we going to let some greedy, Moon-Mauling SOB's trash our beloved La Luna and plaster the lovely lady's surface with what is - in all honesty - LUNAR LANDFILL?

OMFG!... I Hope Not...

If they do this... I may just decide to go vigilante after all.

Peace.
L.

(From: www.abcnews.go.com/.)

Company Offers Moon as Final Resting Place

Mar 27, 2008

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)

The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.

A California company can turn the final frontier into your final resting place.

Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.

(Actually, their alleged plan is to blast only one gram of the person's cremated remains to our once pristine and sole satellite... One gram of cremated remains is less than 1% of the average person's remains, which usually weigh 3 to 5 lbs.)

The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person.

Celestis president Charles Chafer said his company reached an agreement with Odyssey Moon Ltd. and Astrobotic Technology Inc., to attach capsules containing cremated remains onto robotic lunar landers.

Odyssey Moon and Astrobotic are among private enterprises seeking to land a robotic craft on the moon and conduct scientific experiments. The cremation capsules would remain on the moon with the lunar landers when the missions were complete.

Chafer said he expected about 1,000 capsules containing ashes to be launched on the first lunar mission, expected in late 2009 or early 2010, and about 5,000 on future flights.

"The moon is a special place," Chafer said, adding a half dozen people had already signed up for the service.

"For many people, it would be a romantic notion to look up into the sky and see the moon and know that your mom or dad or loved one is up there memorialized."

In the past 11 years, Celestis Inc., a unit of Houston-based Space Services Incorporated, has sent the ashes of hundreds of people from 14 nations into space, including U.S. astronaut Gordon Cooper and "Star Trek" actor James Doohan, who played chief engineer Scotty in the popular TV series.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, Editing by Frances Kerry)