[Cincinatus' Wife]

I think NASA is big enough to handle more than one program. What they need is a strategy and a mission. Searching for life just doesn't cut it. Routine access to space and a lunar base is where you focus your talent. It's a mission to build an infrastructure for space access, and where we'll learn to live in outerspace. The defense implications are obvious.

[snopercod]

Let's not forget the tourist industry.

[Renegade]

I hope they get their act together soon or I won't live to see the first human footprint on Mars .

[RightWhale]

Searching for life just doesn't cut it.

As a goal, it is bogus or dufus. 'Our dufus space program,' has a certain ring. Let the Euros search for life, we have real things to do.