To the Moon Alice

Google has just launched a new map ap called Moon in Google Earth which lets you get a little more up close and personal with Earth's closest neighbor. Which is probably a good thing as a debate has erupted over whether to go back to the moon and build a base there or just go to Mars directly as the next destination. On the 40th anniversary of the first manned mission to the moon, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are lobbying for Mars framing it as an investment with a world peace dividend. NASA's Constellation Program would put a lunar research facility (think Antarctica's McMurdo Station) by 2025 and would cost in the neighborhood of $100 billion. But even as NASA considers the next 40 years, the key question it confronts is why even send people back to the Moon or Mars when you can send robots more cheaply and quickly? It's the "value added" question of manned missions that is waiting to be answered as being to basis for future missions.