I totally agree with Mark's comment:

>The thing that frustrates me is hearing all the bogus arguements for the
>Moon over and over. There are reasons for going back to the Moon, but it
>has marginal if any value for going on to Mars. The same is true IMO with
>regard to the Moon as a base for other exploration. Yeah its got resources,
>but they suck compared to Mars.

If Bush had said something like:

We need to go to the Moon to set up radio astronomy observatories on the far side of the Moon.

--or--

During Apollo, we only explored the near side of the Moon but the farside is also worthy of exploration, e.g. Tsiolkovsky Crater.

--or--

We need to build a new constellation of astronomy observatories at the Libration Points and the Moon is a good staging place for that activity.

Then grudgingly, I might have bought into the Moon thing (I still would have preferred that we proceeded directly to Mars). However Bush didn't say any of that. Instead he trotted out the old chestnut that we can use lunar resources to get to Mars. That's a crock-a-caca. People need to realize that Bush was either misinformed or lied to when he was told to include that nonsense in his speech.

Gary