[PatrickHenry]

NASA ought to reconsider why it wants to send men to Mars. What are we going to do when we get there?

NASA is going to Mars because they can't think of another project, and a bureaucracy must keep busy or -- horrors! -- it's out of business. When we get there? There will automatically be a further mission for NASA, which is keeping the colony alive with ever-bigger NASA budgets. Unless we discover something enormously valuable there, it's just not economically sound to go. Not now. Well, I guess they could always try to sell bottled Martian water ...

[RightWhale]

NASA's job is created by Congress. For the past 30 years Congress has told NASA to be pre-eminent in space. I suppose NASA is still pre-eminent in space, so far, so good. But to send a manned expedition to Mars and return? Nothing follows . . .