Reducaed to hitchhikers

When President Obama permanently grounded Americas space shuttles a couple of years ago, he made a huge mistake. He gave Russia carte blanche over the International Space Station and we now pay $70 million each for our astronauts to hitch a ride.

With Vladimir Putin flexing muscles in Ukraine and thumbing his nose at the U.S. and rest of the world, what happens if he gives our astronauts the boot? Our shuttles were hauled off to museums.

Not only did Obama tube the shuttles, he canceled the Constellation program, the successor to Americas historic space shuttle program.

Obama says he also opposes returning to the moon another huge blunder. Instead, he plans to send astronauts to asteroids and, eventually, to Mars.

To reach Mars from Earth, Obamas budget funds the design and production of massive new heavy lift rockets. But because gravity on the moon is one-sixth that of the Earth, it would be far easier to launch Mars missions from the moon. China thinks so, as well.

In abandoning the lunar program, the president missed the point. It is not about been there, done that, it is about having a place from which to launch deep space missions, test new technologies and develop limitless supplies of clean energy.

Space physicist David Criswell believes the moon could supply clean renewable energy for our entire planet.

He and others envision a series of lunar power facilities to capture massive amounts of solar energy and beam it back to Earth. The moon receives more than 13,000 terawatts of energy and harnessing 1 percent of that energy could satisfy our planetary needs.

Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Jack Schmitt, a geologist and one of the last two people to walk on the moon, believes Helium 3 found on the moon is the key to the second generation of fusion reactors. A light non-radioactive isotope, Helium 3 is rare on Earth, but plentiful on the moon and scientists believe it could produce vast amounts of electricity.

Potential lunar colonization got a healthy boost a year ago when ice was discovered by NASA scientists at its south pole. That means there could be drinking water, oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel on the moon itself.

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Reducaed to hitchhikers