Word: planetful
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...then work backward and take the steps to get us there." That would eliminate the let's-build-it-and-see-what-it's-good-for approach. Far from withering, other space initiatives would be lifted by the rising tide of national interest and funding. Unmanned probes to the planets would continue, and NASA would still be able to launch the Mission to Planet Earth, a series of satellites designed to study the planet's environment and give scientists the information they need to head off ecological disaster...
...Mars mission is 2020. That allows plenty of time for a measured approach and spreads the expenditure over a sensible period. It also gives NASA ample opportunity to choose the next goal after Mars -- exploration of the asteroid belt, for example, or a manned trip to the outer planets. Robot probes would have to study the Red Planet in depth first. One, the Mars Observer, is scheduled for a 1992 launch, and others would have to follow...
...costs, the U.S. should encourage as much participation as possible by foreign governments. The Soviets, Europeans and Japanese all have active space programs, and duplication of efforts will increasingly be seen as an unnecessary waste. Many countries are interested in participating in the Freedom project or Mission to Planet Earth or both, and the Soviets have accepted international help on their Mars probes...
Admittedly, we have gained knowledge about our planet and our solar system, but the question is by no means settled as to whether we could have accomplished the same using robot craft...
Well, he reflected later, the planet can no longer sustain the luxury of pure wild walking, which may in any case carry a certain taint of the elitist or the narcissist, a demand for virginity. (Americans and Europeans have always liked to think of themselves as the first white men ever to have walked into some wild place...