If you consider that in 1989 the NASA cost estimate for completion of the International Space Station (ISS) was set a $6 billion dollars was to be completed by 1992 and then compare that to recent cost estimates for completion of the ISS in 2006 --- now peaking at $96 billion dollars (a cost that almost equals the combined cost of all of the Apollo missions to the moon) -- then given this lesson in NASA economics, how much do you think the cost of a manned Mars mission (set at a ridiculous and unrealistic cost of $20 billion dollars today), would end up costing?

To have us believe you can send and return a manned mission to Mars for less than what the ISS costs to complete seems more like fantasy than the reality. You have to figure in the cost overuns and with a $90 billion dollar cost overun for the ISS today, the true costs of a manned Mars mission would probably make this figure look insignificant by comparison.