The US government hasapproved a requestmade by a Californian aerospace company namedTransOrbitalto visit the moon. This is the first time a private company has been granted permission by the government to photograph, explore, and land on the moon. The company is going to kick off its Moon efforts by launching a satellite this coming June that will orbit the moon and capture high definition video of the surface. The mission, namedTrailblazer, may also put some skeptics to rest (although I doubt it):
In addition, the Trailblazer mission should provide the opportunity to photograph the equipment left behind by past Apollo and Russian landings putting an end to suspicions that the Moon landings were faked.
If you didn’t believe it the first two times, why believe it the third? Man, there are some great "moon landing hoax" sites out there. Kill the rest of your day reading some of that, if you’re really bored. Anyway, if this does "open the door" to the commercialization of the moon, one does have to wonder just what that commercialization would look like. Moon mining is an obvious possibility, but what about moon vacationing? Would you really want to vacation on a dead rock? Come to think of it, does this mean that the moon could very well be the next, *gasp*, Luna Vegas? I mean, how did that other dry, desolate, life-sucking place known as Las Vegas manage to become a hit with half the world?
