Crashing hellishly expensive equipment into the moon at 6,000 miles per hour doesn’t sound like such a great scientific move to me, but apparently NASA thinks it’s a good idea. Right now, two robotic probes are careening wildly to the moon on a mission that will supposedly help mark future “human camp sites.”

I guess the U.S. National Park Service has become too dull for us humans. Long have we ogled the bear, the moose, the Grand Canyon; they have lost their allure. We now ache to carry home chunks of moon rock in our pockets rather than sea shells and arrow heads from our adventures.

These probes, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), were sent from Florida Friday night for a $580 million mission that NASA calls the “first step in a lasting return to the moon.”

Wait a second. Lasting return? That sounds sort of permanent, NASA. Are you planning on colonizing the moon? Maybe creating a new tourist attraction?

(And if so, should the moon become overpopulated, will it get all dark and stuff?)

Actually, NASA has a goal set to have a base on the moon by 2024. Seriously.

The mission’s purpose is supposed to be getting the most precise measurements of the moon’s topography as possible. LRO will be surveying the moon’s surface for several years, hovering over it at an altitude of 31 miles like a lunar voyeur.  And in typical “Let’s destroy this to see what it’s made of!” fashion, LCROSS will crash into the surface in October, sending 350 tons of moon stuff flying and beaming readings of it all back to Earth. Scientists are hoping that these readings will include ice or water vapor.

Ice or water vapor sure would make hosting a moon-base a lot easier, right? NASA is hoping to have the permanent base for the purpose of sending year-long missions…to Mars. And the target year for actually landing on Mars is 2037.

You read right, boys and girls—we’re finally going to try to set foot on the red planet. Why? Exploration in the name of “science” may be toted as the reason, but my guess is that bigwigs know they can’t stop the global warming they’ve helped cause, so they decided to take life on Earth to the next level—that is, to the next planet—before humans are wiped out by ourselves.

A panel set up by President Obama are reviewing the blueprints and deciding whether or not NASA truly has its ducks in a row before further progress is made, so don’t get your hopes up for moon life just yet.