To those who would say that we have already been to the moon so why do it again I would say, no, we haven't really been there.

If you go to a ball game, figuring out the traffic, parking, public transportation, walking, etc then get a ticket, enter the stadium and stay for one pitch, have you really been to a ball game ?

If you plan a trip to a distant location, go on the trip, then stay for an hour and return, have you really experienced the location.

In both of the examples, you learned how to get somewhere and perhaps one fact about the experience, but you really haven't been there.

So too with the moon. We know how to get there and what there might be to see, do and expand, but we really haven't been there.

My opinion only

Is there anyone at the hearing besides Nelson? Paticularly since it is audio only.

If not, the future is bleak for NASA.

The whole human spaceflight program needs to be taken apart and rebuilt, with a realistic philosophy at its heart. Astronauts are *not*, and never have been, 'explorers'. Probes have pioneered all of our exploration, including the Moon. Not one thing the Apollo guys did could not have been done with probes. Instead, the manned program needs to be rebuilt around the idea of astronauts as colonists, to live in the places the *true* exploration branch of NASA has checked out. One of the first things to be done on this front is to stop spending billions of dollars on things that just endlessly circle the Earth in LEO. The ISS is simply an orbiting money pit, and the shuttle is little better. Their return-on-investment rates are appalling....