As NASA celebrates its 50th anniversary, life on other planets seems to no longer be a figment of collective imagination. A new space mission and spacecraft are currently in development. Officials say this ship will be a lot bigger than the Apollo, mainly because the latter transported people, while the first will also take materials to the Moon.

That’s right – NASA’s building a space station! The Moon station in plan will house living quarters and the necessary lab equipment to run tests in order to further analyze the planet’s structure. Also, logistics will be assigned to transmitting the highly coveted data back to Mission Control on Earth. This project will undoubtedly bring astounding discoveries and shed light on the mysteries of our solar system and even of the rest of the universe. People will be able to live in the space station for up to six months.

Those in charge of supervising NASA and its budget administration compare these plans to a man’s middle-age crisis, where a shiny red sports car seems to be the answer to quotidian issues. They fear NASA’s ambitious project will result in a storage room (on Earth) filled with unused materials.

The shuttles used by NASA until now will have to “retire” in a maximum of two years, and budget restrictions force the Administration to postpone any flights until 2015. NASA was encouraged by George W. Bush to send people back to the Moon and even send people on Mars (which may account for the Administration’s high ambitions). The President, however, also promised NASA a significant budget increase, which failed to reach NASA’s accounts.

Taking everything into consideration, it seems that we will have to wait a little longer than anticipated for a “Total Recall”-type base, unfortunately because of –what else? – typical bureaucracy.