House Majority Leader Tom Delay crawls through a mock up of the International Space Station at Johnson Space Center in Texas, Tuesday, May 31, 2005 while on a tour with new NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. (AP Photo/Michael Stravato)
Yeah, let's borrow another 100 BILLION dollars from the Chinese (who finance our Federal deficit spending) so we can send a tin can to Mars to do nothing of importance that can't be done by unmanned robotic probes. That's incredibly brilliant. As long as we're doing that, let's borrow an additional 100 BILLION from the Chinese and see if we can locate any intelligent life inside the Beltway (if such exists). Sheer idiocy!
The benefit of the taxpayer assuming this burden has not been clearly enunciated.
Someone told Delay that there's oil on Mars!
Seriously, we must continue to lead in space exploration. The alternative is that somebody else will. Do you want India to land on Mars first and then crow about their technical superiority?
The money would be better spent to build a wall along the Mexican border.
Coming from where?
This is drawing a lot of criticism of the usual neoluddite type, apparently some of it not fit for the eyes of the reading public.