Short sighted
" NASA administrator, Charles Bolden Jr. has stated in a recent article
that he plans to extend the lifetime of the International Space Station
beyond 2016, the year in which the Bush administration proposed to
abandon it."
The InterNational Space Station doesn't BELONG to the USA, so we
can't just decide to abandon it.
The rocket motors are on the Russian modules, so we couldn't de-orbit
the station if we wanted to.
BTW, you're missing the biggest reason why we'll go back to the
Moon.
Profit.
Mars has nothing but useless sand. But the Moon is covered in
Helium 3, a very useful Fusion power source.
He3 is worth $15,000 per gram here on Earth.
A mining operation at the Moon's South Pole would easily pay for itself
and provide a priceless scientific base of operations.
And if you're worried about going to Mars, a spaceship with a He3
fusion drive, shielded with a meter-thick layer of moondust, would be
able to get you there in three days at 1/10th gravity acceleration.
