Concur. We already *have* a gravity well: why go to all that work just to climb down another one? It's quite possible there are far more resources available far more easily in the asteroid belt than on the Moon or Mars: let's go find out!

We should try to land people on Ceres, a dwarf planet just beyond mars in the asteroid belt. It would take less fuel, the planetoid seems to have frozen water, and establishing a colony there would give us access to mine the asteroids in the area for iron and platinum.

Why Even bother so much to send Any humans to these distant space objects Right now?

I think we should continue to send robotic surveyors to these places first, to do most of the scouting & mining missions. Once these robots have collected enough resources (ie: ~10K liters of water to start with) at these location(s), we can then send the astronauts. Wouldn't it be more wise to have the frozen water already Available to our astronauts upon arrival then to have Them dig it out? Just a thought.

Forget about it all. There are plenty of issues to be resolved right here on earth. Why spend all that money going to Mars? Who's going to pay for the "public option"?

@the Rodentman

Guess how tired that argument is? Will there EVER be a day when there isnt something important and pressing here on planet earth? We cant wait on space exploration, it is so, so much more critically important than many people realize.

NASA's underfunding is shameful. Its time to get some balls back, and put some energy into a greater effort. "Public healthcare" can wait.

One nice thing about a base on the moon is that with it's higher gravity, it's going to be easier to work with regolith (dirt) to make thick walls to protect the astronauts from solar radiation. That gravity, small though it is, will also reduce the muscle loss over stays. And we can experiment with low gravity, not just near-microgravity. And there's water already there in some places!

I've been working on lunar base engineering issues for a few years. Most of you have no idea how much actual engineering work it takes to pull these missions off. That's not to mention the amount of research that has been done on lunar dust, radiation shielding, vibration environments from Moon quakes (have you even heard of them?), lighting studies for power and thermal design, etc, etc).

All that work would be thrown away if they change to some nebulous destination. Once the destination is chosen, much of that work has to start again. And once there is a small body chosen, the public would (correctly) ask "why can't we scout these new destinations with robots?".

The end result? US astronauts will be going to and from ISS until it's splashed, and then there won't be anywhere else for them to go. The US aero engineering community will shrink and the US public will wonder why people from other countries are setting up outposts on the Moon.

I agree with jscengnr.

We have a plan, lets stick with it.
I swear, sometimes it seems like the whole damn country has A.D.D.

Focus People!

Might have had a bit more impact without the patronising tone

Jamion,

It would take more delta V to land on Ceres than on the moon, even with Ceres' shallow gravity well.

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it's NOT TRUE that the (nearly useless) HSF Committee's Report is "157 pages" long, because it's LESS than 90 pages, as explained in the 2nd UPDATE of my article about it:
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HSF Committee Report: "treatment" much worse than "disease"
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http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/056hsfreport.html
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The asteroid belt is full of expensive precious metals and lots of iron, easy to get to in zero G's, we should go mine the asteroid belt instead of plunking around on the moon!! Current science reports on the composition of the moon indicate it is made of a chunk of earth and is low in platinum based metals, iron or useful things, which drive the higher techs of this planet. Lets go find the platinum, and find safe ways to drop huge chunks of metal down from earth orbit and recover them for processing. Yeah I would mine asteriods- YOU BET! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ omg the $$$$$$$$$

Ugh, why must politics always intermingle with science...

We need to PROGRESS into space the way we PROGRESSED into the New World and accross the western U.S. We need to realize that Apollo was just a FETE to beat the Soviets. Once that was done, we completely abandoned our lunar efforts. We don't need to do this again. Engage in a series of fetes only to abandon space efforts for another generation. It's a hopeless cycle. Let's genuinely expand human presence first to the Moon then to Mars and the outer solar system.

The moon makes a great hub. Once you mine the asteroid, where do you process what you have? The moon is local, it's somewhat more consistent in location and attitude (in relation to this rock) and there's enough room to develop/build permanent (in our time frame) establishments.
I wish we had something to insulate/inoculate the public from undue influence by politics. If only the CDC studied THAT as a disease... sheesh.
Anyway - it's nice to see that the committee would like to save some $$ & effort by spending it on something impossible to determine beforehand - great idea - sounds like something a senator came up with.

LOLOL!!! Gee. I wonder why they suddenly don't want to "go back" to the Moon. Give me a freakin' break! What a joke. I didn't see this one coming. It definitely solves a whole lot of problems. How sad.

My opinion on going to the moon is that we SHOULD establish a base there, if possible, to use as a training for colonizing other planets. We need to develop ways of building shelters in the hostile environments we find there. This would also provide an easier chance of getting people home in case of an emergency requires a return.

As to the Naysaygers: Money is NOT LOST in space. It is kept here on Earth and circulates in the economy better by creating more jobs for people. Just like any other large scale building project, like a new highway system or new skyscraper, both high, mid and low level jobs are needed.

Why go? Haven't any of you heard of not keeping your eggs in one basket?? If we don't move away from mother earth, we run the very likely possiblity of the end of the Human Race by one means or another. We could do it ourselves with nuclear war, pollution, overpopulation, or bio-war, to name just a few. Seeing as you probably got here via the Sci-Fi Channel, you should be aware of these very real possibilities as well as having some rock fall on us and wipe us out like the dinos!

The Moon is the perfect place to test equipment and techniques for working in low gravity situations. Build a base with hydroponic gardens & chicken ranches, refinerys and manufacturing plants and make them as automated as we can, then make satalite bases around the Moon to dig up the essential minerals for building space craft in lunar orbit, Then use the Earths' gravity well to accelerate missions to the astroids. Use robotic missions to the astroids to see what minerals we can get there and if possible automated mining machines to dig it up and send it to the moon. Before we go to Mars or the astroids, we need a long term mission with experimental animals, plants, insects to go beyond the Earths' magnetic field to see what is necessary to build safe ships to go to Mars, the astroid belt, Jupiters' moons, etc. Remember, there is tons more deadly radiation out there we arn't exposed to be cause of it. After we get the ship built, then go to Mars to do long term experiments on terraforming and hostile survival (it's more hostile on Mars than the artic or our deserts), and the different gravity will give us more knowledge for building stuff in places like Mars. Mars is NOT viable for permanent habitation because the gravity is too low. Two or Three generations and they wouldn't be able to come back to earth without heavy support to just breath. For Mars to be permanent, either our offspring will have to deal with never comming to the home planet, or we are gonna have to crash a few billion tons of astriods into it to build up its mass so the gravity is at least .95g. Venus is out of the question. Yes, its got .98g, but untill we figure out how to get 99% of its atmosphere to blow off, the pressure makes it a no go. Also, Venus' core is so small that it has barely any magnetic field, making it more dangerous than the Moon. Don't forget, 1 day on Venus is equal to 117 of ours, so Venus is something we can try only after the Starship Enterprise is flying. As far as going to the stars, until we perfect hibernation technology and build a ship that can do .5c or better, forget about it.

I saac Asimov said the same thing twenty years ago, hitching a ride on an asteroid makes more sense. some travel in elipitcal orbits that send them into deep space and back, that way we could piggy back on another one and continue our quest into deep space using established orbits and no fuel except to get to the asteroid. Imagine the orbit of halley's comet...what is it? every 78 years? imagine the free ride on a similar orbit hollowed out inside an asteroid. I laugh every time I hear the scientists talk about terra-forming mars! we can't even save this world. and mars has such a small mantle, could it ever even hold an atmosphere? you don't just go somewhere because it's close. we have finite resources. And everytime we send a probe to another world and it digs it's little probe three inches into the soil looking for life, hell if you want to find old life here you gotta dig down thirty feet!!

Put humans on an asteroid? Are they crazy?! Even if we knew an asteroid with a "close to Earth" orbit (and maybe NASA does), they would never survive the trip! Just the amount of time the astronauts would be trapped on the asteroid while waiting for their orbit to bring them back to Earth would be hard enough to survive. What about the important logistics? How do we deliver food, water, medicine, etc. to these astronauts? The temperature fluctuation alone would probably kill them in less than six months.

What a lame-brained idea!!!

Exploring space is a waste of money!
To spend Billions and billions, and billions on useless space putting, just to satisfy the intellectual gods, is sick, the time and effort, and money should be spent on people, housing, solving pollution, fixing roads, feeding the poor. If you think that sending out rockets into space in some vain hope of pleasuring your brain is more important than the needs of fellow human beings, than all I can say is this; go build your own rocket, with your own money, and go live on some asteroid somewhere, and take your intellect with you.

Just offhand, wouldn't the moon be a superior jump-off point to the greater solar system than Earth's surface? That is, I suppose, if we're willing to invest in a significant moon base. Closer to home, easier to support and salvage if something goes wrong.

Short term. Extend the shuttle and Iss to the max . Study Aries test flight data Out post such as the Moon and Mars not possible due to the lack of funding for the near future. ( say 10 to 15 years. Astroid mining, I read those SF books. Not enough real sicence behind them and the resorse's here are more ecoconomialy avaibale. More study and research needs to be done along with helping those of us on THIS planet that need it.

So relieved to hear that this is being discussed. We should be working toward establishing self-sustaining industries in space. Ore mined from asteroids could be refined in situ or nudged into near-Earth orbital trajectories for sale to the highest bidders. Mining excavation could also serve as a starting point for construction of habitats with ready-made shielding from solar radiation. As self-sustainability increases, energy expenditures required for boosting supplies from planetary gravity wells would be proportionately reduced. If a space program is to remain viable, it must be directed toward goals more pragmatic than symbolic.

The first thing is enlarge the space station. Then use it as a space dock to assemble a ship to go to the Moon, Mars, its moons,or the astroid belt. Being built in near space orbit where it could still get orbital velocity to shoot toward whereever it was programed by its CREW to go travel where no man has gone before,the FIRST TRUE STARSHIP:
ENTERPRISE!!!

Its a damn shame. Our government is run by such short sighted cowards. Space is the next frontier. The sooner we get out there the more opportunities will be made available to this planet. More jobs, more research and investment in robotic, more medical breakthroughs. It may be a solution for our over population problem. What a shame our polititcians can't see beyond the next election.

Hey! Let's use ungrateful money sucking Haitians as our new space moneys, let them try out the new untried environment. They can work off the debt they own us, wait, we have to work off the debt we owe everyone else to finance the Haiti bail out. What shall we call it? HARP? We have so many of them, if we loose a few we can always have another disaster................ooppps! I forgot, Haiti is a constant disaster, besides, I think Chimpanzees would accuse us of discrimination, or at least no common sense for choosing a lower order of simian that has no brain.