“Nasa has announced plans to build a permanent base on the moon by 2024,” where, the Bush administration said…

… we will be greeted as liberators.

… we will fight the terrorists so that we don’t have to fight them here.

… the President is enjoying higher approval ratings than anywhere else.

… we will be at the real center of the War on Terra.

… the oil industry can operate without those environmental nuts ruining everything.

… the weapons of mass destruction will be found.

… etc. Punch lines are easy here. In fact, punch lines are easy everywhere right now, which makes my life simultaneously easier and harder.

But I have to admit that our President has always been forward-looking with this moon-to-Mars stuff. In some ways, he’s been forward-looking in the same way he has been with the deficit and the debt, as in “paying for it is the next President’s problem. Or the one after that.”

[I should add that the fact that the first manned mission to the moon wouldn’t take place for another 14 years somewhat bolsters one of my F.A. colleague’s contention that we never went there in the first place… Me, I don’t buy it, as I see an airtight conspiracy as being even farther beyond our government’s grasp than the stars.]

And I’m sure there are lots of cynics out there pointing out that our last push to the moon served as a distraction to a deeply unpopular and unwinnable foreign war. [Then again, if there aren’t cynics out there pointing this out yet, please remember to give me credit when you pen your smart, cynical columns about this. It’s spelled F-E-L-B-E-R.] But I can’t bring myself to be caustic about space exploration and colonization. There’s an eight year-old inside of me (in fact, many have suggested, running me) who can’t get enough of this space stuff and can’t wait, in the early-2020’s, to be part of that necessary shipment of middle-aged comedy writers who will no doubt be called upon to help colonize the stars. That’s gonna be cool.

But most of all, I’m looking forward to the upcoming disputes, struggles, and - yes - wars that will surround the bizarre but unavoidable issue of extraterrestrial property rights.  How much of the moon is the United States going to claim?  How much is Finland entitled to (or will the climate be too “cushy” for them)?  How much will Iran be entitled to (and will they have to lay on their backs to pray)?

Me, I can’t wait for this - seeing the hordes of petty, squabbling, bureaucratic humanity truly taking their fight “outside” for the first time, well, that’s going to a lot of fun, at least for those of us who get our fun by being constantly appalled at the conduct of our fellow man.

And here’s the ironic thing - I’m not being ironic here.   If we go ahead with our moon base, lunar land rights are going to be one of the big issues of the middle part of this century.  You laugh now, but you’ll start hearing about it within a decade or so, and soon nearby outer space will be thoroughly lawyered-up, and then I expect you to come back here and apologize.

Of course, I probably won’t be hanging around this site all that often, as I expect to busy preparing with my fellow moon-bound comedy writers - training ourselves for low gravity, selecting our “lunar harems” of genetically gifted cuties with whom we will populate the stars, and explaining that latter detail to our wives and husbands.  That’s going to take up a lot of my time.

And yes, I realize that this whole “comedy writers in space” thing is a bit of a long shot, but you have to admit that we could do a lot worse.  In fact, we’re going to.