But two landings were still in the planning stage, and a series of advanced missions under design in two follow-on programs called Apollo Applications and Apollo Extension System. The AAP earth orbital segment survived but only to the extent of a single, prototype space station eventually named Skylab. The lunar segment of AAP plus the extension project were cancelled. The high cost of space exploration was a prime reason.

But some NASA officials now openly speculate that had scientists knew then about the existence of lunar ice, lunar exploration might have continued. "It (the ice discovery) might have changed the direction of the lunar program, " said NASA's Lew Peach.

Peach, the head of advanced space programs for the civil space agency, said last week that use of local resources could drastically reduce the cost of both mounting extended missions on the moon as well as the logistical nightmare of resupply.

Others echoed the same sentiment. "This is a significant resource that will enable a modest amount of colonization for centuries," said Dr. William Feldman, head of the spectrographic research team for the Lunar Prospector project last Thursday at Ames Research Center in California. And what does it mean to living on the moon again, perhaps for extended periods? "What does it mean - it means we can expand to the moon, " said Prospector science chief Dr. Alan Binder.

"We could sustain several thousand people for several hundred years." But don't go asking for a lunar ticket just yet, though Binder said last week given the right kind of national will a return to humans on the moon could take under a decade. At present, neither the U.S. nor Russia has a heavy lift launch vehicle in the Saturn V class that could lift large payloads to the moon. The Saturn V was abandoned by the U.S. in favor of the space shuttle 25 years ago.

The Russian Energyia was also abandoned by the Russian government, although reconstruction of the Energyia assembly lines might be possible. The booster flew but twice, however, and failed to insert one payload on its maiden flight. The second mission carried the Buran shuttle.

No manned spacecraft now exists that can withstand the radiation from the Van Allen belts, through which a craft must traverse to make it to the moon. And most importantly the U.S. Clinton administration and congress as well has shown little interest in manned flights beyond the space station program.

About all the tremendous Prospector find might trigger is an increase in robotic missions to the moon, which will have to be inserted into a tight budget environment that includes deep space exploration to Europa, a Interometry research mission, a Planet Finder, and of course Mars sample returns. "Is this the beginning of a Moon Rush?", asked NSS chief Pat Dasch.

"We expect possibly yes, but in ways that we might not have envisioned when the NSS began its 'Return to the Moon' campaign five years ago," Dasch added. Who will do the rushing, though, remains more a matter of politics than technology -just as it was in May, 1961, when President John F Kennedy started the most recent 'Moon Rush'. Of course, there is always the commercial space sector.

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SPACEDAILY

Moon Critics Ready To Block Ice Momentum
Washington, DC March 9, 1998 -
With the implications of the discovery of lunar ice at both of the poles of the moon still being assessed in the space community, one constant remains left over from the Apollo days: the critics of human spaceflight still abound.