In article %YGei.4881$AR5.4416@trnddc06, "GO Mavs"
wrote:

I agree about that being a fault of Bush. There is no reason we need to send
men to Mars or set up a space station on the Moon.

Yes there is. Well, maybe not sending men to Mars, but learning to live
on the Moon is the next step in humanity's expansion beyond the Earth.
It's a huge universe -- it would be extremely foolish to intentionally
stay cooped up on one small planet forever.

We have learned there is a ton we can do with cameras, machines, robots, and
magnetic and inferred technology. Going as far as we can into space should
only be funded privately.

I'm all for private development as well, but for ventures with very high
capital investment and also high risk, publicly funded development is
sometimes needed to prime the pump. And after all, NASA's budget is a
tiny drop in the bucket no matter what it's used for.