Mark Whittington has a nice Columbia follow up in the Houston Chronicle.

You know, that was something else that made the American West: the sense that it was ours to take. Sure, the fact that we trampled on the rights of the original property owners is a huge stain on America's past (my great-grandmother was Georgia Cherokee). But I think a little bit of that old Manifest Destiny policy and rhetoric would be just the ticket. And it doesn't cost the tax payers anything!

Well, the idea that a million or so hunter gatherers were going to keep an entire continent to themselves is a bit silly. However, as there are no native Lunarians or Martians to dispoil, I think that the frontier analogy is a good one.

"But space nuclear power and propulsion can also be used to send humans back to the Moon "
Wow, how'd he come up with that ? How exactly is nuclear power going to help getting back to the moon ?
There are more, much more pressing matters in space developments than getting fission reactors up there. The problems that Armadillo and XCOR are trying to tackle. Meanwhile, the Agency is embarking on another "technology development" program.
Its probably going to be canned after couple of years of delays, multiple intial budgets, and building a 80% complete prototype as has been the tradition of aforementioned Agency's "technology development" programs for what ... 20 years ?

I don't think he means to get to the Moon. He probably means to establish a base or a settlement there.

The last post is correct. Nuclear power will sustain a human settlement on the Moon.

He say's "space nuclear power AND propulsion". Plus, solar power would also sustain human settlement on the moon. It works, its been tested.

Solar power is not useful on the Moon, because you have to have large-scale energy storage devices, due to the fact that the night lasts two earth weeks.

But there are cheap energy storage methods. One simple one is using solar ovens to create melt pools that are then used as heat sources for sterling engines. So there are ways of building infrastructure that doesn't require nuclear. But nuclear would be nice since its easier, cheaper, faster, better, more....

See Dr. Koelle's works. Solar power _is_ useful on the moon. Especially at poles.
You dont know whether nuclear power for supporting colonies would be cheaper and easier on moon, because you havent tried.
I'd say that currently, state of the art in space solar power would make it cheaper.

But thats not the point. What bothers me is he's saying like nuclear power is a necessity to get humans (economically) back on the moon. Well, its not.
I prefer engineering over research for solving problems in space. Research and technology development have been done for years by NASA. Wouldnt it be time to focus on making the best use of fruits of this research instead ?Additional technologies will follow by themselves. Currently, predicting that "nuclear power" for manned space colonization will be the best is pointless. Lets get there first, demand for advanced technologies will create the supply after that.