The “global war on terror”, yes, he said would last for a long time. That has been clear from early on. The Iraqi situation (especially the Iraqi insurgency) is a different matter that the administration has repeated many times would not last long or would end soon. Surely you remember the symbolism from Bush’s Aircraft Carrier speech with the sign “Mission Accomplished”. I also remember Cheney commenting a few months ago that the Iraqi insurgency is in its last breath. Continue in your (off-topic) rewriting of the Bush Administration’s stance, though.

Funny, I’ve heard him say that this war will last for decades. Continue on in your (off-topic) delusions, though.

For that matter, Blair has staked his career on yes answers to the question of lunar ISRU. If people believe that lunar ISRU looks good, whether or not it actually does, that helps his career. So his position on this is not neutral. I am not saying that he is dishonest; he seems honest enough. The point is that his interest is in discussing how lunar ISRU could be useful, not whether it is useful.

Noting that you’re dragging this way off topic now, how can it remind you of something he never said?
Posted by Rand Simberg at August 2, 2005 02:20 PM
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His administration stated something to that effect many times, and continues to do so.

Which is a statement I’d agree with,and has zero to do with using it to go to Mars. Perhaps you don’t understand orbital mechanics?

Just keep digging, Greg.

But I personally don’t like to argue by authority; I prefer to see what people actually have to say. I find this sentence in the abstract of a paper by Duke, Blair, and Diaz:

The analysis shows that, with current understanding of the available technology for propellant production, transportation systems, and the market for launch of vehicles between LEO-GEO, it is difficult to demonstrate that a viable commercial opportunity exists to serve that market with lunar propellant.

That about sums it up. Blair has devoted his early career to making lunar ISRU look useful, but in the case of lunar propellant, it’s a tall order. They say that it depends on the available technology &mdash which is exactly my distinction between the forseeable and the unforseeable future. They say that it also depends on the quality of lunar ice &mdash which, according to Arecibo results, is as crappy as any ISRU researcher could imagine. That is the point that Bruce Murray and a lot of other people are reiterating.

So there you have it. The research literature yields no particular evidence that lunar propellant production is realistic. Nonetheless Bush is confident that NASA will pull it off. Faith-based government.

A “so-called” mining engineer? Do you have a different name for mining engineers?

If you want to play dueling geologists, Jack Schmitt seems to think it’s a reasonable idea, and unlike your hero Bruce Murray, he’s actually been there.

And I’m not moving any bars. Unlike you, I’m claiming that it could be in the foreseeable future. You continue to claim with faux authority that it won’t, though you have no real arguments to back up your claim.

If you think O’Keefe “got it,” then it’s not surprising you’re afraid of cargo vehicles having pilots. Acknowledging risk is not the same as hiding in the closet.

> Focus on crew safety / survival. Otherwise, why even have a human spaceflight
> program if the goal is not to keep the human alive. To strive for less means
> to robotize more.

Are you deliberately misquoting me? You’re the one who’s argued that cargo vehicles need to be robotized, not I.

If your only goal is to keep humans alive at all costs, then humans can never go anywhere, whether it’s Hubble, Mars, or the corner market.

> Mr. (W)right is Wrong

Interesting that the people who resort to namecalling are usually the same people who hide behind pseudonyms.

Toro means “bull,” doesn’t it?