Recently in The Moon Category

"'They're taking an Apollo-like approach,' Gilbreth said. 'Our program is much more ambitious than Apollo. We're going to put four people on the moon for seven days, eventually for six months. China is looking for a minimum capability. We're looking to put an outpost on the moon.'" NASA officials concede that China will beat the US back to the moon. "The goal of NASA's Constellation program is to return astronauts to the moon by 2020...Gilbreth said the Chinese could accomplish that by 2017 or 2018."

Moreover, that US date will likely slip five years when Pres. Obama takes office in January. In all honesty, this is one of the few areas where I emphatically disagree with our nominee. There are plenty of places to acquire $18 billion for education without raiding the space exploration budget...defense bloat, for example.

"It's very deep, like in a forest on the darkest night,' said Shawn-Yu Lin, a scientist who helped create the material at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. 'Nothing comes back to you. It's very, very, very dark.'" Dick Cheney's soul? Tonight's lunar eclipse? No, a great leap forward in "transformational optics"...and invisibility cloaks. The "paper-thin material...absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black."

"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -- all of you on the good Earth." Happy holidays to everyone out there. Berk and I are currently at the family homestead, where I'm enjoying home cooking, catching up on work and -- true to form -- checking out some of the better video games of the year: Call of Duty 4, Portal, Rock Band (I'm the frontman.) Hope your own holidays are equally fun and relaxing.

"Fact:...The density of Saturn is so low that if you were to put it in a giant glass of water it would float." And another pilfered link, which I meant to post last week: Megg of Quiddity points the way to 10 Cool Facts about Space (although, to paraphrase The Smiths, some facts are cooler than others.)

"If the current proposals to restart human exploration fail politically, indeed, the human space flight endeavor conducted under government auspices might well lose its momentum. I obviously hope that doesn’t happen. But it’s far from a slam dunk that we’re going back to the Moon and on to Mars." Two companion pieces to today's reflection on 50 years of Sputnik which I missed earlier: The Grey Lady hypothesizes about the next fifty years of space travel (suggesting its future as a public enterprise might be dubious) and takes a moment to consider the pop culture ramifications of the space age. "'At the level of government, I think we’re still struggling as to why we’re sending people to space,' Dr. Logsdon said. 'It’s a decent question, and I think it’s an unanswered question.'" (My answer to this question, for what it's worth, is here.)

In "world of the future" news, NASA announces it plans to establish a permanently-staffed base camp on the moon by 2024, preferably at one of its poles. (Here's the rationale.) A moonbase within 18 years? I'm all for it...just keep an eye out for monoliths and make sure Sean Connery runs a tight ship.

If you believe they put "a" man on the moon, then there's nothing up my sleeve, and nothing is cool. Also, you'll have no problem with the recent update to Neil Armstrong's famous first words there. Score one for the lunar grammarians.

The LA Times examines the beginnings of the second lunar space race, which will involve, among others, the US, Europe, China, and India. "Some researchers even have a name for the first lunar city: Jamestown, in honor of the first English settlement in the New World."

"To become a multiplanet species, we must master the skills of extracting local resources, build our capability to journey and explore in hostile regions, and create new reservoirs of human culture and experience. That long journey begins on the moon -- the staging ground, supply station and classroom for our voyage into the universe." Astrophysicist Paul Sputig eloquently makes the case for a return to manned lunar exploration.