What's the "we" crap, Kemosabe?
I read the discussion on this thread and observed that we Zoners, as a representative sample of the broader community of space advocates, are already falling into the trap of squabbling over our long term goals in space at a time when even the short-term first stages are at risk because of Columbia and the current political and economic environment. We risk losing everything by not paying attention to the immediate necessity of getting our basic near-Earth space operations going again. At this point America has no human space flight program at all. We'd better deal with that first and save the dreams of [insert celestial body here] for later, or none of us will ever get anything we want.