2012 and Planet X News Blog

Back in 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong made that first historic step onto the moon, Americans envisioned that by 2009, we would have colonies of people living on the moon, all flying the American Flag, of course, in colonies perhaps named after the astronauts who landed there.  Yet, here we are in the summer of 2009 without even one lunar home, grocery store or Internet connection.  Why? 

The 40-Year-Old Dream

Mars Astronaut

by Staff Writers
Tucson AZ (SPX) Aug 26, 2009

It’s time to find out if humans can permanently live and work in space, according to an article written by Mark Sykes and published in the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona’s morning newspaper. “This has never been a part of U.S. space policy, despite a long history of public relations implying the opposite,” Sykes says.

Sykes, CEO and director of the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute, has a poster hanging in his office that shows astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon next to an American flag. The caption reads: “Remember your dreams THEN of NOW.”

When that photo was taken in 1969, Americans believed they would lead the way into space and by 2009 people would be working in well-established colonies on the moon and Mars and even in space habitats, Sykes said.

Instead, after hundreds of billions of dollars spent and the loss of many lives in our human space-flight endeavors, NASA has announced plans to abandon and de-orbit its only platform in space - the International Space Station. The orbiting platform will be scuttled in 2016, only five years after its completion.

We need to start evaluating our space abilities now, so that when Planet X next crosses Earth’s path, some say in 3696, we will be ready to endure long periods in space.  If we want humanity to survive that flyby, we must look ahead now.

Catch you on the Backside!

Janice Manning
2012 and Planet X Bulletin