No question people are more interested in Mars thatn the Moon. A private rover on Mars would make more money than a private rover on the Moon.

But fundamentally, what people are interested in is the Mars of their imagination, the Mars of illusion, the Mars that resembles the US desert southwest - and not in the real Mars. This is the only thing which can explain the fact that no money has been spent doing modern image processing on the Viking image sets, why very little is spent on the recovery of Martian meteorites from the Antartic and north African deserts, while endless amounts of money are spent on the pursuit of water on Mars.

If one notices, Mark leaves out security and safety as a criterion for mission selection. This is perfectly understandable, as fundamentally, Mark is pretty well emotionally blocked from understanding that asteroid and cometary impact presents a fairly large danger.

Children will eat chocolate all the time if allowed to. And they will tell you how good it is for them as well. Most parents know better.

EP