To The Moon, Alice!

Dems pitch national park on the moon

Two House Democrats have proposed legislation that would establish a national historical park on the surface of the moon to mark where the Apollo missions landed between 1969 and 1972. The bill from Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) would create the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park. The park would be comprised of all artifacts left on the surface of the moon from the Apollo 11 through 17 missions. The bill says these sites need to be protected because of the anticipated increase in commercial moon landings in the future.

This really pisses me off; the US government can't fund lunar exploration anymore because the entitlement state has eaten up almost the entire discretionary budget, and now they want to pass a law that that they can't enforce forbidding any US private institution from doing anything with the trash they left behind on an extraterrestrial body that they can no longer reach.  Other countries, and private companies (Virgin Airlines, anyone?) capable of reaching the moon someday, will, of course, ignore them, and correctly so.

"As commercial enterprises and foreign nations acquire the ability to land on the Moon, it is necessary to protect the Apollo lunar landing sites for posterity," according to the text of the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act, H.R. 2617.

Under the legislation, the park would be established no later than one year after the bill passes and would be run jointly by the Department of the Interior and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

I can hardly wait to see Smokey the Bear on the Moon.