...And To Your Left, You'll See The Giant Freaking Monolith

I came across this little gem of a story in the Washington Post today and it set my little geeky heart to fluttering. NASA officially announced plans to set up a permanent moon base.

NASA unveiled plans yesterday to set up a small and ultimately self-sustaining settlement of astronauts at the south pole of the moon sometime around 2020 -- the first step in an ambitious plan to resume manned exploration of the solar system.

The long-awaited proposal envisions initial stays of a week by four-person crews, followed by gradually longer visits until power and other supplies are in place to make a permanent presence possible by 2024.

A friggin' moon base man! I don't think I need to explain just why this is unbelievably cool. I know that renewed efforts at manned eploration of the moon is old news and this inevitable step has been foretold for some time now, but the official announcement coupled with this graphic from the New York Times depicting a rough layout of one of the prime pieces of lunar real estate being considered just got me pumped.

The only real question left in my mind (aside from the obvious question of defending our newfound territory against the mighty Unicron), is when can I start moving my stuff in?