Word: missioners
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...means he's going to deliver a dreary speech calling for the reform of entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, programs scheduled to go broke about then. But George W. Bush is trying to make the politics of the future fun again. He not only announced a new mission to the moon and Mars, but also sounded as if he would be doing it for the cost of a trip to the corner store...
Nobody in Congress will be eager to give Bush a postdated check for his mission to Mars without some tough scrutiny. For one thing, turf battles are sure to erupt. NASA is being asked to hack $11 billion off its current budget to free money for the new mission. Members will want to protect existing projects in their states or districts, not to mention NASA research on climate and astronomy that they believe is worthy. "Human beings in space isn't going to be the driver of our science policy," says Sherwood Boehlert (R., N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee...
...presidency. The war on terrorism does not help Bush in the same way. Putting a man on Mars will not help find Osama bin Laden or his descendants. But future Presidents will fight that war too, and it just might be wise to accompany that battle with an optimistic mission to the heavens...
...there are vital differences between Lewis and Clark's expedition and a Mars mission. First, Lewis and Clark were headed to a place amenable to life; hundreds of thousands of people were already living there. Second, Lewis and Clark were certain to discover places and things of immediate value to the new nation. Third, the Lewis and Clark venture cost next to nothing by today's standards. In 1989 NASA estimated that a people-to-Mars program would cost $400 billion, which inflates to $600 billion today. The Hoover Dam cost $700 million in today's money, meaning that sending...
Present systems for getting from Earth's surface to low-Earth orbit are so fantastically expensive that merely launching the 1,000 tons or so of spacecraft and equipment a Mars mission would require could be accomplished only by cutting health-care benefits, education spending or other important programs--or by raising taxes. Absent some remarkable discovery, astronauts, geologists and biologists once on Mars could do little more than analyze rocks and feel awestruck beholding the sky of another world. Yet rocks can be analyzed by automated probes without risk to human life, and at a tiny fraction...