I watched the LCROSS impact this morning with an almost nostalgic sense of wonder (SharkBoy wasn’t so in awe), remembering my first big memory as a kid of the lunar landing back in 1969. I’m glad to see that NASA is struggling to get back into the Second Moon race – the Chinese have apparently HD mapped the surface of the moon in attempts to set up factories for the next iPhone.

“Waste of time,” I keep hearing on the web (I’m paraphrasing).

Not so. Water is hydrogen and oxygen. Split that apart and you have fuel and air – great ingredients for further exploration (like off to Mars) or sustained life on the Moon.

“But the Earth needs looking after!” I people moan.

Here’s me flipping both my thumbs up in the air, making an insincere face and saying “Great job, humanity! When the Earth started to fall apart you redeveloped the Hummer and plastic bags full of dog poop for your kids’ kids to find!” Obviously the Earth will not sustain us forever – it will fail us despite our best efforts. Maybe in 100 generations or more, maybe sooner due to war, who can say. I’d be happy if we had a back door to run out of if suddenly the house caught fire. Explore away, I say!

“But why did they have to hurt the Moon?”

Good lord it’s a lifeless rock! We do 1000 times more harm here on Earth in an hour with strip mining and wars than two pieces of a 1 ton spacecraft slamming into a cold, sun-less crater just so we can analyze the debris. Stop anthropomorphizing a heavenly sphere.

“Couldn’t we just send a robot?”

This was cheaper and faster.

“How much did this cost?”

Very little, really, compared to a regular ISS launch. American taxes went to NASA, NASA paid a lot of companies paid good money to have their parts built into the probe. That stimulated the economy locally. Jobs! Cash flow during the recovery of the worst recession in our lifetime is a good thing.

So to the Moon Sympathizers out there I say “Oh suck it up! We’re going if you like it or not!”