Suggestion For Hoagland

Richard Hoagland is a man of complex theories. He also seems to have a large audience, as evidenced by the success of his current book, Dark Mission: A Secret History of NASA. Hoagland lays out many theories in the book. Maybe it's time he put one to the test.

Hoagland argues there are huge structures on the Moon, for example, obviously built by an extremely advanced civilization. He further argues that NASA has covered up that discovery for decades, even going as far as doctoring photographs and hypnotizing astronauts to make them forget what they saw.

Well, as reported in this blog, both China and Japan currently have probes in lunar orbit, and other nations have similar plans. NASA can no longer control lunar photography. If Hoagland's huge structures are really there, we should know shortly.

Or, if Hoagland argues there's a worldwide government conspiracy, there are several private lunar ventures on the drawing board, including the X-Prize Google Lunar Challenge. Hoagland could even mount his own lunar probe mission. Sending a simple probe carrying a simple camera would likely cost in the $100-200 million range. Hoagland seems to have the expertise to oversee such a project, and he knows exactly where to point the camera. Such a mission would likely be a marketer's dream. There would be television rights to sell, book rights, who knows what rights, conferences to hold as the spacecraft is being built-- a slick marketing plan could probabky pay for the project before launch. Afterward, the photographs of the lunar surface would be in Hoagland's hands, no one else's.

Just a suggestion.