We got a cool flame war between Di Gregorio and Eby.

Some things never change. My views haven't changed either. I still support Mars exploration and would support colonies on Mars and I still support intelligent handling of any return samples from planets or elsewhere.

The human organism is amazingly resilient, though. Each cell records its experiences and passes on this data through DNA. Fighting illnesses will be revolutionized when we successfully address and remove sick cells individually instead of collectively.

The solar system is an interesting place. Humanity will soon see itself in a broader perspective as a class of beings (or organisms ;-) which must understand more of the way the universe functions or be doomed to live at the whims of religions and gods.

We can bow down to meteorites or we can understand them, dissect them and analyze them.

Mars and the other planets are each examples for us to further our understanding of the universe and of ourselves.

Science must not exclude exploration or analysis due to fear, nor explore in a foolhardy manner - but it must continue to progress.

13% of the 18-24 year olds in the US can recognize Afghanistan and Iraq. I would hate to see what numbers could differentiate between differentiating Mars and Jupiter or name the largest volcano on Mars.

This ignorance of the world we live on is inexusable and must be overcome. More efforts must be made to educate the world about this world and others. I applaud the National Geographic for their spectacular Mars issue and map, which helps offset the ignorance. I may rag on the Geographic for their changing political views, but they at least keep the scientific dialogue going and are a powerful tool to combat scientific and geographic illiteracy.

As the world's population increases we face scientific dissolution over the greater populace, if we do not dramatically INCREASE our scientific education process and expenditures.

SDAI-Tech1