I've tried to stop calling you an idiot, but see you have not...

I don't care what your personal opinion is. Polls don't support your contentions about manned Mars missions.

What you are really trying to suggest is that in the early 1960s we were "seriously" planing to send people to Mars. Because we seriously were sending people to the Moon. This is false. We had serious plans to send people to Mars from before the spaceage began, but without the political will to do so it is meaningless. You argued that Dan Goldin being a extreme Mars fan should have been able to push thru a manned mission. Clue, check what the Clinton Administration's views were on manned missions to Mars, during 8 of Dan's 10 years. Without political will no government run manned mission will be run. Anything lasting longer than 5 to 6 fiscal years is probably dead on arrival. Anything costing as much as STS and ISS does in a year is probably dead. The argument that if only we could get ISS and STS off NASA budget then we would go to Mars is not clued into the political realities. If NASA loses any of it's manned program monies it's not likely to see new monies for another project without political support. Bush could give a rats ass for Space Exploration or moving this economy anywhere unless it keeps him in office.

BTW, this all applies to a return to the Moon or manned Asteroid as well as manned Mars missions. It is a deadend without further reduction in costs (in particular launch costs) and less of a risk for governments.

You go ahead and take your poll. As I've said before I have done exactly what you suggest and it doesn't support you in the least. People say, "Oh, the dinosaurs dead thousands of years ago! That wont to happen to us today, we have the military to protect us!"

Impact harzards are not high on the government's list of things to protect us against, get over it and move on!

--Chris Vancil