Moonset: Something is Afoot Down at NASA

I'd be very exited to see the moon as a testbed for robotic technologies. With little effort we could make a moon base before anybody even goes there. Or useful stuff, like a telescope.

You have cheap energy, lots of space, some building materials and time. Could be a lot worse.

We throw most of our budget away anyway on defense, which is certainly not doing anyone any good; if we can't politically agree on anything useful to do with it, it would be nice to at least spend it on something cool, instead.

Mars will be to the 21st and 22nd centuries what N. America was to the last four. The short-sighted will ask why we'd ever want to go there. It will take some form of "irrationality" to overcome the short-tern economic myopia. If it's Chinese national pride that opens the door, so be it. They're no worse than the Pilgrims.

I remember some joke about aerospace engineers and working in fastfood.

Most of the U.S.'s belief in its universal superiority is fluff. I don't doubt at all that china and india will overtake the U.S. in space exploration in the coming decades. If commercial endeavors are going to go to space, why would they waste their money over paying washed up NASA scientists to do it when they could go to china or india just like they do for Nikes and cars and everything else pretty much.

The entire supply chain is in asia, what does the U.S. have left? Guns. That's about it. Guns. No room for butter -- move aside.

The Greek, Roman, Islamic, and Frankish empires all became huge due to the need for exploration and conquest, usually from a relatively small number of people. Their massive growth led to greater wealth and cultural exchanges, which enriched the empires, sometimes at the cost of conquered territories and peoples. That, in turn, usually led to stability.

The great exception to this is of course the Mongol Empire. They were the largest empire in history, led by just a few people, and they were incredibly destructive. They had a certain distaste for cities and everything that they represented (education, culture, liberalism), so they became an unstoppable destructive force. The "What If" book claims that some regions of the world are still feeling of the effects of this. But, the empire only lasted for around a hundred years.

I'd say that a civilization's thirst for exploration and adventure is one of the traits which would tend to lead to longevity, but others include a respect for education, intellectualism, and liberalism.

Add to that the unwillingness of our political class (both parties) to do anything about spending and cost growth on defense, medicare, and medicaid and you've severely limited "what you can cut" to NASA and a handful of other programs, even though cuts to those are a fractional percent of the budget and barely enough to even register over a 10-year window.

Leadership takes hard decisions. Our "leaders" have shown no interest in same.

The decisions of our government are the result of our culture, not the other way 'round.

I might've hated the decisions to wage war in the Middle East on a number of grounds, but I had to admit that those decisions had massive popular support.

This is just a continuation of that same culture in action, and any historian could tell you what's likely coming next.