As lunar tourism becomes a thing of increasingly less distant future, members of the Congress are starting to worry about preserving the legacy of Apollo 11- the first human landing on the moon.
The 1969 landing sites have sat practically undisturbed and some Democratic lawmakers are acting in advance. They are backing a Lunar Landing Legacy Act which will create, in effect, a national park, a world heritage site to protect the footprints, equipments and flags there forever.
Democratic Reps. Donna Edwards and Eddie Bernice Johnson have chosen the Apollo landing sites as the grounds for this taxpayer funded endeavor which would contain relics from the Apollo landing missions.
The bill is not without critics.
"This is why our country is going in the toilet. Our taxpayers cannot make ends meet with all the waste in Washington," reads a letter appearing in the Baltimore Sun -- in Edwards' home state of Maryland.
Irrespective of the outcome of these congresswomen efforts, the fact remains that NASA's July 13, 1969 mission was a tremendous undertaking, of which the entire human civilization is not only heirs, but also defined by.
Whether our duty is to clean or preserve the mess Apollo's exploration have caused in the moon, depends on which side of the fence you happen to be standing. The fact remains that even the most optimistic projects expect space tourism to be at least one hundred years in the future. And as of now, there no missions targeting the moon (we should not forget that the Apollo 11 mission cost - in today's money - about $170 billion).