"I know you know a lot more about existing and past rockets than me Larry, but I've also seen how dug in you can get on technical issues without openly looking at all the data so forgive me if I need to see a far more detailed critique to believe you. Your comments don't provide even 0.01 % of the detail Zubrin provides. Again please list specifically what you think these major obstacles are? I be thrilled to get down to brass tacks with you on any specific technological issue. A new suit as you mentioned before hardly justifies a return to the Moon first."

Technology is mostly about people and there is really a difference between the NASA of Apollo and the NASA of Columbia. This difference is not just a romantic perception of the Past. The NASA of Apollo was more competence. So, *one* reason for going to the Moon, is to develop confidence and experience- make a team which is better than the team of Apollo.

"I don't believe Zubrin is a Saint. I don't even believe he is the best leader for the Mars Society. I'd prefer Chris McKAy. What I do believe based on actually reading Zubrin's book is that he makes a compelling case why we don't need to go to the Moon first. "

But this was a case against the plan that the first president Bush rejected- NASA goes to the Moon and mines oxygen from lunar material.
If there was a choice between Mars Direct and SEI, I would pick Mars Direct. But in 2003 this is a false choice. Perhaps when Zurbin was actually writing his book, it was reasonable to argue against SEI, but today it's definitely a strawman argument.
Today I see neither Mars Direct or SEI as anywhere near realistic.
I don't think NASA should build a Saturn V type booster or even a Shuttle C type booster, nor do I think that NASA should mine water on the Moon.
NASA job is exploration. NASA should determine if there is minable deposits of water at the Lunar poles. NASA should determine how humans can operate in open space (including LEO), NASA should determine if Life is elsewhere in the solar system, NASA should do things which would further space development which includes as an example: harvesting/generating energy in Space and transmitting this energy, or even things like growing crops and animals in Space (including on bodies such as Mars). NASA's job is to open the space frontier. In order to open the space frontier it must have some kind of plan of doing this. A plan will also show priorities and sequence. And of course you can't expect the plan will perfectly predict what will actually occur. It's similar to plans made for wars, shit happens, but you still should have a plan, otherwise you get what you have with the current NASA and it's manned program.