The added complication today is that NASA and the U.S. federal civil space program has its short term future hitched to a $100 million space station that has yet to be built - or fully paid for. In short, even with the tantalizing prospects that water ice on the moon could be economically exploited to support human colonies, America isn't going back to the moon anytime soon. But, just perhaps, not so her allies.

No sooner were Dr. Alan Binder's remarks about putting bases on the moon for less cost and operating them for less winging its way around the world, long standing foes of human spaceflight were just warming up to throw cold water - no pun intended - on the prospect. Chief among these was Planetary Society head Dr. Bruce Murray, who poo-poohed the thought of using the lunar ice to live on the moon. "Water at one percent by volume is not a resource," Murray told New York Times space reporter Warren Leary. "It's just not at high levels to be extracted economically," he added. And he sternly warned moon supporters to basically shut their mouths. "Raising false hopes makes people more cynical about space," Murray criticized.

Of course, so does criticism of major scientific finds before they are fully understood, too. In any event, nary a word of support for the Prospector findings was heard from one person claiming to be its "father", none other than Dan Goldin, the czar of "faster, better, cheaper" space probes. Goldin was absent from the Ames press announcement on Thursday, and his voice hasn't been heard since playing up the bold discovery.

In truth, while Binder was opening his press conference to make the discovery public, Goldin was lunching at the White House with the Clintonites and new space shuttle commander Eileen Collins. Collins got the red carpet treatment last week, as First Lady Hillary Clinton announced her selection as the first female shuttle commander, then took the president, the astronaut, and NASA chief Goldin to schools in the Washington, DC area to hail Collins as the new role model for young girls everywhere. Never mind that the Clinton administration has done nothing for NASA except downsize the space agency to nearly out-of-business status. Goldin was quiet about the scene.

Meanwhile, others are puzzled about the lack of public interest in the discovery thus far. National Space Society Executive Director Pat Dasch wondered aloud Friday about the news media's "muted" reaction. And others have pointed out that NASA has been swiftly criticized in the past year for allegedly planning seriously the prospect of manned trips to Mars.

But one U.S. space partner may not be so shy. Japan may well accelerate its development of a pilot plant to mine in-situ lunar resources. A prototype unit to extract hydrogen from the lunar regolith was shown in Washington in 1992 at the World Space Congress. Along with its programs for lunar penetrators, look to Japan to find a way within its own embattled space programs to capitalize on the ice and find a way to make it profitable for a lunar base, if such is possible at all. And, if the truth be told, no one yet knows if that can - or more pointedly -cannot be done.

Of course, Goldin may just be too busy to talk up the moon- the once and future moon, that is. On Thursday evening, when the whole space world was a buzz with thoughts of the moon's future, Goldin was more preoccupied with its past. He attended an exclusive, invitation-only screening of one of the 12 episodes of the new HBO/Tom Hanks mini-series on the Apollo program. There were a lot of movie stars present there, we're told. But strangely, nobody from the Lunar Prospector team. Or even from Clementine, for that matter.

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