[kjam22]

I see an advantage to a space station. I see an advantage to satellites, weapons in space, defenseive shields... etc etc. But there is no reason to put a man on Mars, except to pound our cheast and say "we did it". And that's a pretty expensive cheast pounding.

[thepainster]

No doubt it would be some very expensive chest pounding. But my point is that the current space shuttle program and international space station are examples of how not to do a space program. 400 million to launch the shuttle and put an ant farm on the space station makes no sense to me. If it was up to me I would kill NASA and turn over the rocket program to the military. The rest of our space needs can be done better in the private sector. But it looks like NASA is here to stay. So why not do something that will capture the imagination of the nation and world again?