Why is nobody paying attention to this?

[fpb]

I had never even heard it, had any of you? And yet it is since 2007 that Germany had announced the establishment of a purely German space program, separate from the European space agency, and intended to go to the Moon. Now Peter Hintze, the German federal director of aerospace, has announced that Germany plans a mission to the Moon within ten years. One of the many ways in which the world media are corrupt is that they never pay any attention to news like this. There is a meme that Europe is lazy and declining, and that the future is in the Far East. Any news that contradict the meme simply are not publicized. And when German spacemen will in fact be walking on the Moon, everyone will be surprised, not knowing that the program had been widely announced.

(the news was reported by today's Italian Catholic newspaper L'Avvenire)

Comments

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Absent synthetic gravity, the combination of age and lunar gravity would tend to weigh against the moon as a destination for retirees: prolonged exposure to low gravity means a significant loss of bone mass which the elderly especially cannot afford. As I recall, it is not good for cardiovascular health either.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

These are RICH old guys we are talking about. They will no doubt bring their own doctors with them. And here is another area for colonization: no doubt, medicine and veterinary research institutions will want to have labs on the Moon to see at first hand how life changes and evolves in this new context. Think "unexpected consequences"...