MEN ON THE MOON

My long trip to South Korea was made manageable by the good service and care on Korean Air Lines. It was my first time flying on that airline. They had a great assortment of films and I watched five of them including a couple really fine foreign films.

One movie of note was called Moon which was made by singer David Bowie's son Duncan Jones. I was expecting the usual crummy pro-space action extravaganza but was pleasantly surprised to find a thoughtful anti-corporate movie that held my interest throughout.

The story is about one of my favorite subjects - a mining colony on the moon where helium-3 is extracted for use back on Earth to power fusion reactors. I've been talking about this for years and always add that these bases are planned to be nuclear powered and that nuclear rockets, with reactors for engines, would launch much of the heavy loads from the Earth to the moon.

I won't give the storyline away except to say the film is worth watching, even if you are not a sci-fi fan. I am not particularly one....I watched the film purely as work related research. It raises some very interesting moral and ethical questions about just what kind of activities could go on once space bases are created on far away places like the moon. Who would be monitoring things there? Who would protect the human rights of workers?

NASA's current "moon bombing" mission is a perfect example of the "dual use" nature of space exploration today. They are looking to "unearth" water they say on the lunar surface and likely also are looking for helium-3. At the same time they are field testing the technologies to fire projectiles from a space craft onto a planetary body - no doubt a part of Star Wars.

Now, during our annual Keep Space for Peace Week, would be a good time to be thinking about these issues.

The space program is out of control. The time has come for the taxpayers to demand transparency, accountability, and a peaceful space program. In the meantime we need to put the brakes on this runaway train.