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"Bush Wants To Go To Mars"
by James Burk
Over the last few months, I have heard pundits on TV, political writers, and ordinary folks uttering variants of this phrase. It is sometimes accompanied by the cliché of why we should go to space when there are so many problems here on Earth.
This frustrates me. Certainly, the Vision for Space Exploration has as one of its ultimate (but undetailed) goals as the exploration of Mars, as well as asteroids, the outer planets, and their moons.
Yet, the Vision for Space Exploration does not have a set date of sending humans to Mars. NASA does not have a set date even for their long-term plans. With the Vision, it is clear that we are going to the Moon first. There has been much debate and misinformation about the budget for the Vision, which only includes building the CEV and going to the Moon with it. Mars is only getting money and attention from NASA to continue JPL's robotic Mars Exploration Program, which arguably would be getting these resources if the Vision had never been pursued.
Being a longtime advocate of the permanent settlement of Mars, my feeling is that some people are so adverse to the idea that they hear it when other space projects are discussed. Another way to take this is that the average "man on the street" knows that sending astronauts to Mars and ultimately colonizing the planet with a new branch of human civilzation is the next big goal of humanity.
Nevertheless, it's frustrating to see two things happening here:
First, its frustrating to me that Bush is getting credit and (will continue to for the foreseeable future) for the idea of finally sending astronauts to Mars, something that was proposed immediately after Apollo 11 but was cancelled by another Republican president (Nixon). He should not get credit because this is not even what the Vision is about for this decade and probably the next.
Second, that the noble long-term endeavor of settling the red planet is made into a political football by those who do not support ANY space exploration, and those who do not support Bush for President use it to make him seem out of touch.
I don't support Bush either, and there are plenty of more effective ways of accomplishing that task that do not involve stretching the truth by saying he wants to send NASA to Mars.
Perhaps this is a symptom of the success in instilling the Vision for Space Exploration into the public consciousness. Perhaps this indicates that the American public is still not ready to embrace a robust program of solar system exploration. Whatever is the case, its frustrating to me to see and hear when so many have done so much more to promulgate the idea of going to Mars besides George W. Bush.
James Burk is an independent space writer and the editor of ProjectConstellation.us and MarsNews.com