The Pendragon's Hall

There is an old story that the great Bismarck, the German war leader in the late 1800s, was shown a map of Africa and told, "The British and French and Italians are carving it up for themselves. We must get in on this." Bismarck pointed to a map of Europe and replied, "There is my Africa." The Pendragon was reminded of this story today when he heard on the news that NASA is dedicated to establishing a permanent base on the moon by 2020. Somebody in Washington needs to point to a globe and say, "That is my moon!" We're wasting taxpayer dollars and for what? The space race was a way to keep patriotism alive in the heyday of the Cold War, but those days are over. We know now that they can't lob bombs at us from the moon, so who cares who else is doing it? Space may be a fascinating exploration but that doesn't mean the government should waste taxpayer dollars towards doing it when there are so many more worthwhile projects here (or if they can't think of any, just give all that money back). I am seriously annoyed that NASA wants to spend billions towards establishing a way-station on the moon while here on earth, our troops languish for lack of training and equipment, people can't afford to go to college because of rising prices, gas is astronomically expensive and there are people in this country who can't afford Christmas presents or a decent place to live. The moon is dead and it is always going to be--we've looked for that side of it that is turned away and doesn't share our curse. Earth we have a chance to do something about--heck, even sending that money to Africa would be a better use for it than putting a couple people on the moon year-round. Just one more instance of governmental priorities being screwed up. I just hope we don't hear that it's vital to the War on Terror or something!