Eugene Cernan expressed a wistful regret at being the "last man on the Moon."

He didn't, and probably couldn't, imagine that his title would stand for three decades, but as of Saturday, December 14, that will be the case. No human being has trod on lunar regolith since that date in 1972.

This is an anniversary to commemorate, but certainly not one to celebrate. If we, as a nation, wanted to return to the Moon today, the conventional wisdom is that it would probably take us longer than it did the first time (about eight years).

Conventional wisdom is often wrong, but in this case, assuming that the current version of NASA does the job, it's probably about right.

Many opinion pieces will doubtless be written about this dubious anniversary, talking about how sad it is that we can no longer do what we did thirty years ago, and what happened to the nation's spirit of adventure and vision, and why oh why can't we do what we once could, and lamenting the days of yore, when men were men, and rockets were rockets.

Since I hate to be redundant and derivative, I want to use the commemoration to make an entirely different (but I think highly, and perhaps even more relevant) point.

The focus of this mission should not be on Gene Cernan, but rather on his partner in the expedition to the lunar surface (and later US Senator), Harrison (Jack) Schmitt.

Jack Schmitt was not the last (hu)man to walk on the Moon. He was second to last.

But he was both the first and last scientist, by profession, to walk on the Moon.

Think about it.

There were six successful trips by men to the lunar surface. Eighteen men went on the mission, and twelve of them walked on the Moon.

Leading up to that mission, several more men went into space. On the ground there were hundreds, thousands of engineers, accountants, secretaries and other support personnel, at both NASA and its myriad contractors, to afford them the opportunity to go into space.

And at the end of all that, they sent a single professional scientist.

In the military, there is an expression called the "tail to tooth ratio."

The teeth are the men (and now occasionally women) on the front lines, actually engaging the enemy. The tail is the entire logistics train that is required to get them to the front, and provide them with the resources (food, weaponry, equipment) to allow them to do their job.

If the purpose of the Apollo program was science, and one considers the "science" done to be performed by someone who was actually trained to be a scientist (astronaut Schmitt had a PhD in geology), the tail-to-tooth ratio of Apollo was almost literally astronomical. We spent several tens of billions of dollars (in current-year dollars) to send a single individual to the Moon. Everything that occurred up to that point was prelude.

And of course, once he spent his few days on the lunar surface, we brought him back, and no one, let alone another "scientist," has been back since.

Let's look at another example. In all of the Congressional debates about the International Space Station, and whether or not to fund it for yet another year, the undertone of the debate was always about how much "science" it would do.

Now let's look at reality.

The station currently has three astronauts aboard. Most of their time is consumed in simply keeping the space station functional. While there's now (borrowing from Star Trek) an official "science officer" aboard, it's more public relations than reality.

Whenever budgets are cut, the first place to look for savings is from "science."

There's no centrifuge aboard the station to provide controls for different gravity levels. Too expensive.

The power level of the station is barely sufficient to sustain the basic function of the facility--not to provide power for experiments.

Indeed, the program isn't even budgeted for enough spare parts to do planned experiments and research in the event of a breakdown.

The hassle factor involved to get an experiment aboard the station is tremendous, and in terms of time, a doctoral candidate might graduate, get married, have children and grandchildren before she could get an experiment on the station and useful results returned.

What's my point with these two examples? That we must spend even more money on the ISS and the manned space program in general to get "good science"?

No.

My point is that the notion that we send men (or women) into space for science is absurd. Yet it's one of the prevailing and damaging myths of space policy debate.

If one looks at the federal budgets for space "science" versus non-space science, the former gets a significant percentage of the latter. But there's no reason think that the science returned by manned space can possibly justify the expenditures, compared to all other types of science.

Space science gets more because, with the current ways of doing business, it costs more, and because those promoting it have managed to gull politicians and the public into thinking that the "science" thus returned is worth the expenditure.

It's not.

Space endeavors are about many things, but science is, and should be, low on the list. What we're presently doing in space cannot be justified by science (just as Apollo, in any rational analysis, couldn't be--it was about international prestige, and fighting the Cold War).

In fact, it's hard to come up with any justification for what we're presently doing in space, even for those who, like me, want desperately to see us become a space-faring nation.

But thirty years after the last man (and the first and last scientist) walked on the Moon, it is a useful time to reflect on why we, as a nation, want to do things in space. And after we decide that, we may have some chance of deciding what the best approaches are to accomplish those goals.

I think that there is a signicant portion of society that is curious at the prospect of being able to have sex at zero G. Just think of all the new positions that could be attained that would make the figures in the drawnings of the Kama Sutra blush. If anything the Internet proves that new frontiers initially dominant and prosper with sex and entertainment as there main categories. We need a serious push for privately owned floating hotels and resorts. And further more lunar based resorts and ultra low G sports arenas. I'd pay money to watch and play a basketball game at 1/6 earth gravity on a 2 acre court with 60 foot high nets.

I have a couple of comments re recent space discussions here:

--Mid-course intercept of ICBM's and maybe of theater ballistic missiles:

The place to put the kinetic energy kill vehicles is in rather low altitude polar orbits. The means to put many such payloads: ta-da! a completely RE-USEABLE launch vehicle.

--Do the three astronauts continually aboard the ISS for seven day week after seven day week really have no time to perform scientific experiements? I doubt it. I suspect that this is a cover story for not having enough scientific experiments to do to occupy even three people full time.

By the way, why does the principal investigater have to go into space to perform an experiment? Ins't it the essence of unbiased experimenting that an experiment need not require the artistry of a certain individual to perform?

Coorection: Change "The means to put many such payloads" to "The means to put many such payloads on station"

I have another question for space guys here at Mr. Simberg's site. I just took a look at the Kelly Aerospace Astroliner described at www.keely.com.

Sorry, but I don't think this launch vehicle will work. For one thing, I don't see how a 747 could tow the thing aloft from a standing start on the runway unless the Astroliner developed at least as much low speed lift as the 747. Note that the Astroliner, as described, doesn't seem to be contributing any thrust during takeoff.

Furthermore, if the Astroliner had lfiting surfaces capable of generating mucho low speed lift, I don't see how the thing could attain a high Mach number at altitude.

Can anyone expalin this to me?

Correction: "Explain"

To get a payload in the 4,000 kg class into orbit using horizontal takeoff, a better idea is to carry the rocket-powered stage inside a C-5 or other transport aircraft and expel this upper stage out the back with the rear ramp open. The Air Force demonstrated this during the 1980's, launching an MX ICBM by airdropping it out the back of a C-5.

Such a launch system might be a little too "sporty" for a people-carrying launch vehicle, though.

Any comments?

Sorry, I don't really have the time to answer all these questions. If you're really curious, I'd suggest repeating them over on Usenet, at sci.space.moderated, or sci.space.tech, or sci.space.station.