re: A goal
That's SO twentieth century Raoul
Decentralized development is where it's at & competition - the genome mapping project is a fine recent example
As much as part of me likes a Bush Space Program initiative I have no faith that the org which last brought us the $1B X-33 hangar queen and just fried another 7 astros after "fixing" the shuttle will get us to Mars w/o spending more money than the US national income and more time than anyone here except Jason has