[running_dog_lackey]

And which of the enumerated powers covers searching for the lost Martian atmosphere?

[muawiyah]

“post roads”

[cripplecreek]

And which of the enumerated powers covers searching for the route to the Pacific ocean? (Lewis and Clark)

The fact is that governments have long funded pathfinding missions. The big difference here is that government also assures a dead end because the international outer space treaty puts everything off limits for all but research. If we ditch the outer space treaty and allow private ownership of property on bodies in space, business will find a means of making it profitable.

[kidd]

And which of the enumerated powers covers searching for the lost Martian atmosphere?

Don't you know? The "Right to Life" in the Declaration of Independence means the right to find martian life (but not the right to human birth)

Besides this project will help with the state-sponsored religion of atheism, whose adherents believe that finding evidence of life on another planet somehow disproves God.

[mrreaganaut]

And which of the enumerated powers covers searching for the lost Martian atmosphere?

The copyright clause (Article I, Clause 8, Section 8) gives Congress power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Unfortunately, this clause was stretched to allow the acceptance of Smithson's bequest of the Smithsonian Institution, and general science spending followed. Appropriating money for the Navy or Air Force to explore Mars would be much more constitutional.

Even more unfortunately, being part of the U.N. meas that we can't claim territories once we land there.