Mark, Mars is not the only place in space worth visiting. It's a damned interesting place, but not the only one. We can go straight to Mars like Zubrin (and you) suggest, but then what? Why do you think it would be any different than what happened after Apollo? Because Zubrin says so? Yeah, right. There's nothing more than wishful thinking that it would somehow be different this time. If that's all we're going to do, then why bother? I lived just outside Marshall Space Flight Center during the 1960s and 1970s. I saw the glory days of NASA and saw it gutted afterwards, going from one of our crown jewels to just another bureaucracy. I don't want to go through that again.

In your obscession with Mars, you're basically dooming us to the same mistake of Apollo. Mars Direct is a long-term path to nowhere, ultimately. In the end, they'd do just like they did with Apollo. They'll build the minimal vehicle capable of performing the minimal mission and ultimately unsuited for anything else. Once the public interest wains because we have "been there and done that", it becomes easy to gut the program once more, probably dooming us to another generation or two before we do anything else.

Open your eyes, Mark, and see the bigger opportunity. We need more than flags and footprints on Mars. We need a spacefaring infrastructure. We need the ability to go just about anywhere we want, not to one single destination no matter how interesting it may be.

That's what I'm driving for - true infrastructure, not stunts. The moon is an interim step but an important one. For that matter, Mars is also an interim step but an important one. Creating a true space infrastructure will change EVERYTHING. Going straight to Mars, especially going off half assed without rigorous testing, will accomplish next to nothing other than probably getting some good people killed for nothing.

There's a saying, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." You're apparently obscessed with creating the "perfect" Mars mission, at least according to the Church of St. Zubrin. Unfortunately, all you're doing is further undermining an already difficult sell in the Bush proposal. No matter how imperfect a proposal it is, it's the best thing we've had in over 30 freaking years. We can crap and bitch and get it killed, too. But then what? Are you naive enough to believe that Bush or his successors will be willing to push another plan to anywhere after that? Why bother when any proposal, regardless of its merits, will be raked over the coals not just by a skeptical press and public but half of the space community, too?