The "Geek Gap": the erosion of America's manufacturing base is undermining our research and development capacity--and, unless reversed, will lead to a shortage of hi-tech engineers.(INDUSTRY)

In May 1961, shortly after the Soviet Union placed Yuri Gagarin into orbit, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge to send an American to the moon before the end of the decade. Roughly eight and a half years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left their footprints--and planted a U.S. flag--in lunar soil, thereby securing an American victory in the "Space Race" with the Soviets.

The eight-year campaign that led to the Apollo 11 lunar landing consumed $150 billion in today's dollars. That money was spent on a complex, multi-phase effort to build and test an entirely new set of technologies. The effort also enlisted tens of thousands of top-flight engineers in numerous fields. Since Apollo 17's Lunar Module Challenger lifted off on December 14, 1972, no human being from any nation has set foot on the moon. NASA has announced an ambitious plan to return to the moon, this time using an expanded and updated "Crew Exploration Vehicle" capable of taking four astronauts, rather than two, to the lunar surface.

Where the 1960s Lunar Program accomplished its objective in less than a decade, however, NASA's 21st-century revival, which was announced last fall, doesn't anticipate a return to the moon anytime before 2018. By the time Americans once again leave footprints on the lunar surface, it is possible that others will have gotten there before us.

"India's 20,000 space workers are readying [an unmanned] lunar orbital mission set for 2007," reported the February 12 Los Angeles Times. "Japan plans to send a robotic rover to the lifeless rock by 2013, and the European Space Agency has a probe, SMART-1, orbiting the moon." Only two countries, the United States and Communist China, are seriously discussing a manned mission to the moon. China, which recently completed its second successful orbital mission, "says it wants to land two 'taikonauts'--as Chinese astronauts are called--as early as 2017."

In anticipation of a manned landing, China is preparing to launch the Chang'e 1 probe in 2007, which would make orbital studies of the lunar environment. Beijing also plans a robot sample-return mission in 2012. All of the planned lunar missions will pay particular attention to the lunar poles, which Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University calls "the most valuable [non-terrestrial] pieces of real estate in the solar system" because…