NASA has announced some new plans.

NASA says it will set up polar moon camp

I used to be indifferent about NASA’s space exploration operations until I read this blog editorial:

A Rocket To Nowhere

Now I’m less indifferent and more distressed. That’s a enormous amount of money into what sounds compellingly like a big cube-esque boondoggle.

(Incidentally, I’m assuming that Cube is a retelling of an older philisophical or literary meme, in a similar way to the Matrix and the Parable of the Cave. Can anyone tell me what that meme would be?)

For what it’s worth, my previous lukewarm support of the space exploration program was on the grounds that it really is an exciting prospect, and there didn’t seem to be any convincing reason to think that if the funding were pulled that it would be transferred into anything worthwhile. Since then however, events have strongly suggested that expansion in the space exploration department comes together with reduction in the earth environmental monitoring department. Which I maintain is wildly important, more so than I think it gets credit for.

However exciting, I don’t think space exploration is at all practical. No matter how smart MC Hawking may be, any earth worth leaving is unlikely to be able to support the evacuation of any but a tiny elite of humans. Frankly, I think the world, the universe, myself, and anyone statistically likely to be descended from me are all almost completely unlikely to benefit in any material way from space exploration. It’s nice and all, but not for the cost, and particularly not if it affects the budget of NASA’s useful projects.