America Back on the Moon

Sometimes I think that people, when regarding other spherical celestial bodies like the moon or Mars, tend to impose their sense of scale based on what the Earth is like.  It's easy to do this, especially with the moon, as it truly looks from our vantage point like a worthy counterpart to our own planet, albeit a very dry and desolate counterpart.  The truth is, though, that it is much, much smaller than Earth...how much smaller, you ask?

If you were to impose a map of the continental United States on one showing the visible lunar surface, with the same scale of distance for each map, the U.S. would essentially cover most of it and would span the horizons from east to west!  Think of Miami being near one horizon and, traveling in a west-northwestward direction, Seattle would be clear on the opposite lunar horizon!  That, my friends, is pretty small...and once you realize this, then look out at the moon your next opportunity and you just might come to the same conclusion that I did.  Which is that our moon is a lot, lot closer to us than it seems!

By the way, regarding that superimposed map of the America on the moon, try this link to see
what I mean: http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/moon-scaling

I'd like to believe that my article's title wasn't so misleading, that we were actually going back to the moon.  Frankly, I don't see why they couldn't just send a couple of modest missions up there each decade, just to remind the folks out there that we still have the capability to get there and back.  I would have preferred we did what our previous president, George W. Bush, had set into motion, which was to work to set up a permanent base there.  But our current president Barack Obama scrapped that plan almost immediately upon taking office...and we're now going nowhere in a hurry...