Jim,

In terms of landings that *didn't* happen, you might mention the couple of private ventures that expressed an interest in lunar surface missions.

They include Transorbital (http://www.transorbital.net) and LunaCorp (http://www.lunacorp.com). As of 2000 both hoped to be landing robots right about now. Lunacorp got as far as getting Radio Shack to sponsor their lander, I think. But both fizzled in the tech bust and the web sites are basically defunct.

With those plans dead, I'd put my money on the next lunar soft landing being by a NASA VSE-related mission in 2009 or 2010. It's harder to say for certain for lunar missions since they are not so driven by launch windows. Once we get serious and build a spacecraft we could fly it right away, so it's conceivable -- but very unlikely -- that they might rush and get one on the moon in 2008. I'll go for July 2009 as a best guess.

It's possible a moon mission could be chosen as part of the 2004 Discovery AO and go sooner -- anyone know if they received any such proposals? I know a South Pole-Aitken mission has been one of the perennial suggestions for a discovery mission.

If you need any quotes about the lack of public willingness to fund space exploration or how it was driven by the Cold War back then, let me know (I'm a political scientist in real life, though haven't actually published on space policy outside of the Zone.... :)

-dtb