Howard Dean on manned Mars effort

Presidential candidate Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) is currently answering
questions online at WashingtonPoet.com.
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp...s_dean1103.htm

Here's one of interest to this group:

Dallas, Tex.: If elected President, what are your plans for NASA and the
Space Program? Do you think it's time to retire the Shuttle and move on to
bigger and better things, such as a human mission to Mars, or returning to
the moon?

Howard Dean: I am a strong supporter of NASA and every government program
that furthers scientific research. I don't think we should close the shuttle
program but I do believe that we should aggressively begin a program to have
manned flights to Mars. this of course assumes that we can change presidents
so we can have a balanced budget again.