Rusty Barton wrote
"150-billion dollars for a suitcase full of red dust! Think of all the
things that could be done here on earth with that money!"

That's what stands between NASA and a Mars mission.

"Steven D. Litvintchouk" wrote in message link.net...

As the International Space Station (ISS) has shown, the U.S. isn't
averse to spending billions of dollars on a space project, even one of
dubious value like the ISS, so long as there is a perceived political
payoff.

In the case of the ISS, the Clinton administration cared less about it
being a space station than about it being an international
something-or-other. It became a demonstration of international
cooperation in space, and a way to flatter Yeltsin, and a way to employ
all those Russian engineers who we feared might make weapons instead.
So we not only went ahead with the ISS, we carried along the Russians
even though they had many delays and problems with their own part of the
project.

Well, I feel that working with the Russians is not a bad thing. Their
govt and scientists have shown an interest in launching space probes
to do pure research, at great cost, and there are not many countries
that do that. If we "helped" them with the goal of pursuing
exploration rather than the old routine of competing on political
ideology, then I am for it.

We spent roughly $300B per year for 40 years on defense...that is
$12,000 billion dollars vs $150B for a Mars mission. Both are a lot
of cash. That is why I would like to see a Mars orbital mission as an
interim step. It would familiarize the public with the concept of
extra-planetary flight and would of course involve NASA, RSA, and ESA
in longer-term flights. And it would cost a small fraction of a
lander mission which would occur around 2050, assuming the US is still
solvent financially at that time, and with the material and technical
aid of RSA, ESA and China as well.

by first going to the U.N

I don't see the UN as a motivating factor.

KB