NASA Plans Manned Mission Around the Moon in Early 2026

[Maxmars]

I'm thinking "Mars"-robust self-constructing robotic assembly.  Requiring minimum human presence to effectively kick start the process.... of what?

Living permanently in low gravity?...  um... wait a sec.

[UltraBudgie]

The ET's have us quarantined.  
The question is what is the border, or has it shifted?
Some say Mars,
Some say the Moon
Some say Saturn
Some say the edge of the Solar system.  hmmmm

Does it matter? You'll never know for sure. Can't shoot someone who always outdraws you.

But the mythos is important. I look forward to the next round of stories. Something for the kids.

And those who will never never stop believing. Enjoy the show, I guess.

Here, from Journey's "Escape" tour:

[sahgwa]

I recall reading humans are not meant to live in low gravity. It even scrambles our genes, let alone our poor bones and organs.
Mars would work though once you heat it up.
It looks just like Greenland.
It's even less red than they say. People already mentioned the colour touching on the photos to make it look more 'exotic'
I guess now we may be playing the opposite game.

[Kwaka]

I'm thinking "Mars"-robust self-constructing robotic assembly.  Requiring minimum human presence to effectively kick start the process.... of what?

Getting stuff to make more robots is one high on the priority list. Mine, refine and press out more machines. No locals or government regulations to worry about. Still have to be careful in hostile environments to make a profit.

[Maxmars]

I recall reading humans are not meant to live in low gravity. It even scrambles our genes, let alone our poor bones and organs.
Mars would work though once you heat it up.
It looks just like Greenland.
It's even less red than they say. People already mentioned the colour touching on the photos to make it look more 'exotic'
I guess now we may be playing the opposite game.

It won't work if we wish to have those people ever be able to visit earth.  NOPE.

Generational changes are inevitable.

Then there will be Pure blood humans... and Martians.

Oh Joy... another wedge to exploit.

[sahgwa]

It won't work if we wish to have those people ever be able to visit earth.  NOPE.

Generational changes are inevitable.

Then there will be Pure blood humans... and Martians.

Oh Joy... another wedge to exploit.

You has to read The Martian Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
he inputs extrapolates the politics of not just Mars vs Earth humans but ALSO genetically elongated life spans!

[EXETER]

IIRC it'll be the furthest humans have ventured off this planet.  (A title still held by the Apollo 13 "slingshot" to get back to Earth.)

NASA and their Paperclip rocketeers should've kept it pedal-to-the-metal with eyes on Mars.  But since we didn't and need to restart, this is a good baby step to bigger things.

NASA and their Paperclip rocketeers absolutely wanted to keep pedal-to-the metal after the Apollo landings, but the first Apollo lunar landing actually occurred under Richard Nixon.  He viewed the whole Apollo/NASA thing as a Kennedy/Johnson pork program which provided Nixon no political benefit, whatever.  And from a strictly political point of view, he was right.  

Even though the Apollo Program was conceived in the last days of the Eisenhower administration, it was JFK who went to Congress a few weeks after Yuri Gagarin became the first human in Earth orbit and got them to put up the cash to do it.  JFK had asked LBJ to lead the effort on the government side of things to put in place what would become a decade-long funding program.  That was a good choice because LBJ was one of the best politicians around at the time capable of making horse-trading deals in smoke-filled rooms, and it established the precedent which is more or less followed to this day of making the Vice President the senior executive in charge of the Space Program (civilian as well as national security). 

LBJ made sure that most of the big important NASA centers that had to do with manned space flight and had the biggest budgets were located in Southern states (Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida) in districts which were heavily dominated by Democratic politics, back then. This was before 1964, when LBJ championed the civil rights act and acknowledged that by doing so the Democratic Party would lose the white vote in the South.  Which it did, more or less to this day.

LBJ saw this as a way to pay back Democratic politicians for their support as well as to re-industrialize the South.  In their view, the South had never really recovered economically from the Civil War, and this was a way to redress that grievance. 

When Nixon finally came into office as the Apollo Program was winding down, he didn't want to keep spending large amounts of federal money for programs that primarily benefitted Democratic politicians. So he agreed to keep NASA going at essentially a constant funding level (adjusted for inflation) at a level much smaller than what the Apollo Program had seen, as long as it produced something that he liked.

That's how the Saturn V Program got killed and the Space Shuttle Program got started--the Space Shuttle couldn't do anything except go around the Earth in circles, so there was no danger of NASA attempting to do anything heroic (and expensive) again.