"One small step for man"
The first manned mission to the moon was an important step for the US space program. It mas mostly psychological and was nice in showing that Americans could trump the USSR in space as well as get humans there and back again.
Bush's plan to put people on Mars and on the moon again is stupid. The US dominates the heavens, and manned missions make absolutely no sense... see the shuttle disasters.
NASA engineers all agree that robots and satellites are the way to improve human understanding of astronomy. Sending people is extremely expensive, risky and stupid.
Estimated costs of putting a human on Mars range as high as a trillion dollars, and humans would contaminate Mars with microbes if they weren't killed. ("The costs could be phenomenal," said Alison Fraser, director of economic policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has backed Bush's tax cuts and many of his other initiatives.)
NASA needs to focus on missions that aren't stupid, like seeing if there is life under the frozen crust of Europa's oceans. Not planting a flag on Mars.
Bush, as usual, is an idiot with no concern for science or sound economic policy.
It's not monopoly money, you illiterate, war-mongering, oil-stealing, rich people tax break giving, deficit exploding, 9-11 KNOWING, big-government pushing assclown !
In a small step for man, Howard Dean won the moral victory of the nonbinding D.C. Democratic primary today.
Dean for president 2004.
