Monte Davis, of "Thinking Clearly About Space" has another snarky look at overblown space enthusiasm, providing a helpful taxonomy of X-Treme Spacers:
Alt.Tech
Chemical rockets have let you down: after decades of gritty engineering they remain expensive and trouble-prone. It's time to start over with a space elevator, deployed by laser launch and magnetic catapult. From the top, nuclear salt-water hotrods will set out to roam the solar system. This team will take the field as soon as a few remaining kinks are worked out.
On a vaguely related note, Dennis Overbye questions the need for a Moon base. Back when this idea was first floated, I did a few posts arguing that with a bit of work, you can make it look like it's not totally idiotic to do the Moon before Mars. Maybe I'll Classic Edition those...
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NASA's first goal should be to ship back moon and auction it off in dribbles on e-Bay using the HP-45 business plan. Self-funding! A surpassingly fine and large retroreflector array should be emplaced for expedited lunar laser ranging.
A moon base is a wonderful low-gee zero atmosphere launch platform for seriously large robotic probes, albeit FOB Terra. That will compromise the moon as a low-gee, quiet, vacuum observation platform. One eagerly anticipates Enviro-whiner snit for destruction of lunar ecology and Muslim snit about their demigod being trodden by infidel corrigated sole/soul booties.
Do it. Spray advertising onto the maria in carbon black. Cover the moon in aluminum flake for Terran night illumination. Above all... there is barely time to put Haliburton in charge.
I have to agree that a moon base makes very little sense now, or in 2024. It would be a collosal money hole draining funds from everything else if it were pursued in a fashion that could actually bring it about, and a pure waste of time, money and effort if it were half-heartedly pursued. It's time to dump the shuttle and the ISS so that NASA can pursue science and, in the process (one hopes) develop technology that might one day make a moon or Mars base realistic.
I think, at the very least, a moon base prepares astronauts for some of the long-duration living problems involved in traveling to and living on Mars. Like the low gravity, long-duration exposure to radiation, etc., etc. Only, if something goes wrong on the moon that prevents them staying, they're days away from home instead of months.
You want to spray advertising on the lunar maria in titanium dioxide - the albedo is (if i recall correctly) something less than 0.1.
The moon base is more or less pointless, and I say that as a space nut. I mean, it's something cool to do in space, that will get some degree of positive press, and keep a lot of engineers and project managers employed, but that's really about it. This is not an accident, as you can get a lot more money out of the federal government for things that are cool and will keep a lot of people employed than you can for science...