Thanks phil. I agree with Oberg on this.

Goldin is showing his age by trying to use music entertainers to raise interest in space and engineering among the younger folk - he should be using video games.

THE way to raise interest in space among the next generation is by taking the datasets for the different bodies and dumping them into flight simulators.

In terms of securing those national goals among the younger generation, perhaps one of the younger astronauts should be considered for next NASA Administrator. (I think Musgrave's age may rule him out.)

On a deeper level, when you and I were coming up, Phil, we had a habitable Mars presented to us in our science fiction.

Not so for the current generation, as they know from Viking and Pathfinder that Mars is simply not habitable, and all the PR in the world isn't going to change that.

"The Search for Life" and "Terraforming" are no substitutes for a habitable Mars as a driver for manned exploration.

What is the new driver is that the "smaller" impacting asteroids and comets are only visisle from space, and that the Moon could be the place to do that.

That's not a lunar base, its a man tended lunar observatory - and I'm glad to hear you consider it as an alternative to Mars -

Now if you'll just stop insulting Goldin, and admit what an empty sloganeerer Tumlinson is, then we'll be on our way...

EP