To lefties you can sell Mars as the new prejudice free utopia - a place to begin anew.

To righties you can sell it as a cornucopia of exploitation - mining, a new empire to develop.

To eugenicists - you can sell it as the place of the "fittest" - the new reproducing ground of the master species of humanity.

Mars IS the product. A new world for a new generation. One can portray Mars as a future Paradise regained: Bubble Cities, Mars vacations, Earth-Mars shuttlecraft, Mars bars ;-), etc.

Like the symbolic first shovelful of dirt excavated for a construction project - the first mars explorer/settlers can put on a similar PR routine for the future bubble city.

Many fail to realize that our space program was advertised! Kids could buy toys, comics, watch shows on Disney and other tie-ins to the US space program. This was ESSENTIAL to sustaining public support. In ten years from 1950-1960 the MEDIA convinced people that a moon trip was not just crackpot science fiction. In 1963 Wernher von Braun started his decade long run in Popular Science advertising the moon projects to the average American. (not in any AAAS publication!)

Yes, advertising sold the moon trips. PR blitzes - astronauts on Life magazine, astronauts wives on another...space beanies in cereal boxes. When the public is interested and expecting results - congress is interested and increases funding.

Nubile young models are simply a tool to help focus an image-obsessed society.

Youth, beauty, gadgets, sex, danger - the ingredients of the latest Bond movie or the ingredients of a successful Mars advertising campaign.

In today's fast paced media world - one can get an international funding effort going. Forget Gates - go after the Sultan of Brunei and countless others who are not as inundated by cranks and schemers. Once you get a few bigwigs - the rest will come easier.

Always a Righty,

SDAI-Tech1