What we really need in space isn't a out dated before it is built international space station but a real space ship to explore the planets. A large nuclear powered space ship could be used to explore mars by carring small nuclear powered shuttle type crafts to land on mars in several places. Explore the surface and return to the main space craft and come back to the Earth to be refueled and then go to Jupiter and Saturn. It would carry nuclear shuttle craft that could land on the moons of Jupiter, refuel there and then continue on to Saturn. Explore Saturns moons in detail and return to Earth or continue to the outer planets before returning to earth refueling and taking on a new crew for another misson of several years. The space craft could rotate to make artificial gravity and be reusable. Making several trips to many differnt planets and moons. Such a space craft would be far more cost effective than current plans and take several people along with complete labs to effectively study the data gathered on site. Only a manned space ship could be flexable enough to study new things that weren't expected. Unmanned space craft are only able to search for what they are programed to search for. I am sure many people would be willing to go on a five year or so voyage to the outer planets. I know I would!

Moon