Return to the moon

At home the other night, I found a book on the planets. Included was a chapter on the moon. Several pages dealt with the color of the moon. Astronauts who have walked on the moon say the surface looks brown when you're looking toward the sun and gray (I think) when you look away from the sun. Back inside the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the Lunar Excursion Module, moon dust gave off the smell of burning gunpowder.

The next morning I looked around the newsroom and had a feeling-old moment. The last moon walk was in December 1972. Very few people in this building were alive then. They have no memory of anyone walking on the moon.

Remember the excitement of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo? I sure do. I remember building one of those dime-store models of the Gemini capsule.

With the space shuttle scheduled to launch tomorrow, I have to wonder why we don't try to get back to the moon. Yes, it would be expensive, but the technology exists, and we could do it better now. Instead of a space station orbiting the earth, we could have some sort of station on the moon. It would be a new source of excitement for at least two generations that have never seen live photos from the moon.

The space shuttle fleet is due to be retired soon. Let's build some more rockets and put people up on the top of them, not back where the fuel is. Let's go back to the moon.