Back to the Moon

After more than 30 years, America is now back into its manned space exploration program. New space ships, named Orion, are being designed to replace the aging and low-earth-orbit-bound shuttle fleet, and will be the next step in America's return to the moon and beyond. NASA announced that Lockheed Martin Corporation and a partnership of Northrop Grumman Corporation and Boeing Company are bidding for the work, projected to pump some $18 billion into the economy over the next 10 years. The Apollo 17 Lunar Mission was the last manned expedition to the moon, leaving the lunar surface on 14 December 1972. It's long past time for the US to return to manned space exploration, and continue the discoveries that await on our nearest neighbors, the Moon and Mars.

The US has had a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) probe in orbit around Mars since March of this year. Its mission is to obtain a low orbit and survey, photograph and analyze the Martian surface. Maybe this MRO mission will produce concrete evidence of long-lost ruins of a civilization that many believe existed and flourished on Mars. Ever since the 1976 Viking mission images of Cydonia – with its pyramids and haunting, mile-wide 1,500-foot-high human-looking "Face" looking skyward from the barren sands a thousand miles below, there's been a heated debate about intelligent life on Mars.