Nasa should have built a moon base instead of the ISS in the first place. At least a space race will help keep the bean-counters away from the development budget and put some strategic focus into the effort.

NASA may be going to the same old moon with a ship that looks a lot like a 1960s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said Monday that it’s going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there.

Unveiling the agency’s bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon’s poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there.

The only problem is, the Russians have a good chance to beat us there.

Nikolai Sevastyanov, president of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, said Russia will build the first permanent lunar base in 2015. NASA managers claim that U.S. astronauts will land on the Moon in 2018 and manned lunar bases will subsequently be established. Chinese scientists are also spotlighting their intention to exploit the Moon’s natural resources.

If the US and Russia don’t manage to do it, there are a couple of new competitors in the race.

China’s unfolding space plans include that country’s first foray into exploration of the Moon. A Chang’e I lunar orbiter is nearing final construction, being readied for rocketing to the Moon in 2007.

Preparations to launch Chang’e I—named after the Chinese goddess who flew to the Moon in a popular fairy tale—are to be completed by February for launch later next year, according to a November 29 report by China’s Xinhua news agency.

Even India is getting into the game, with some help.

Why does India, a poor country, want to explore the moon instead of using that money to alleviate poverty?That was the question raised six years ago when India’s space agency ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) asked the government for $65 million to build and launch an unmanned scientific spacecraft to circle the moon.

I agree with Stephen Hawking in that our only hope to survive as a species is to establish ourselves offworld, and a lunar base is the first real step.