Everybody's Going to the Moon - Finally!
/NASA recently released their 2006 Stratigic Plan, outlining their goals for the next couple of years. If some of the things that they're planning pan out, it's going to be very exciting.
In the table of contents, the following items are presented:
- Fly the Shuttle as safely as possible until its retirement, not later than 2010.
- Complete the International Space Station in a manner consistent with NASA’s International Partner commitments and the needs of human exploration.
- Develop a balanced overall program of science, exploration, and aeronautics consistent with the redirection of the human spaceflight program to focus on exploration.
- Bring a new Crew Exploration Vehicle into service as soon as possible after Shuttle retirement.
- Encourage the pursuit of appropriate partnerships with the emerging commercial space sector.
- Establish a lunar return program having the maximum possible utility for later missions to Mars and other destinations.
The full plan is online here: NASA Stratigic Plan (PDF)
Further looking around NASA's website, reveals that they've got a new type of lander that they're working on, much, much more advanced than the original Apollo ships, because of new technologies and whatnot. The site mentions that the lander will be able to take 4 people to the moon, and mentions that there's the posibility that the moon and ISS (International Space Station) will be used for missions to the planet Mars. They also mention a minimum of two missions per year. When this will happen, I don't know, and I really hope that this will happen. More on that here.