I don't believe a man on Mars is in the cards in your lifetime but you may see a man on the moon----if Burt Rutan puts him there. I have lost all confidence in NASA.
Well i'm actually 38, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself..But I believe youre right.
Not hardly. Rutan is not the great savior.
Funding and a public behind the funding is. We have neither. I for one do not expect to see The US land a man back on the Moon in my lifetime, much less Mars.
The unfortunate thing is that unmanned scientific missions will suffer and we will still get nowhere.
As an example, we traded the SSC for the white elephant called the ISS.
Anecdote: Years ago, I got admonished after I referred to the ISS as Mir-II in an e-mail I sent to a colleague.
yah - but he'll only do it ONCE, and then bask in the notoriety for as long as he can.