Depends who we are stuck with. :^)

If this next "bold" venture to put men on the Moon is just another set of Flags and Footprints only to watch the dream die again for another 40 years or longer, then we are better off staying in LEO.

You realize that as our technology advances, having humans do these missions of exploration will become even more suplurfluous. Maybe in 1969 the spaceships and their computers needed all the help they could get from human operators, but that is not the case today and in 2018 and 2030 and beyond, it will be even less so.

Just to sum up for those who may think I am against humans in space for any reason: If this is just a Bush plan to wave the American Flag on another world to show the rest of humanity how great we are, with the sciences taking a back seat, and then the whole project is dumped when the geopolitical objective is complete, so that our descendants in the 2020s starting whining about no real human presence on the Moon and Mars, then I say don't bother with it.

So Bush says he'll fund a return of humans to the Moon and Mars. For how long? For what purpose? To set up colonies there to conduct real science and exploration for decades and centuries? Anybody can say we're going to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond (tm), but will this idea even survive getting past 2009? And will there be a permanent presence in space beyond LEO?