Way back in the day (2004), President Bush promised to send people to Mars. NewScientist reported that the cost of the mission was “expected to cost $40 billion to $80 billion”. That really seemed like a lot of money. A year earlier, in 2003, Bush sent his country’s soldiers into Iraq. It is believed that as of September 27, 2007, the war in Iraq has cost the USA a whopping 454 Billion dollars! (and here’s even a more pessimistic estimate reported at The Boston Globe in 2006)
If the original Mars estimate was accurate, that means that instead of going to Iraq, the USA could have funded somewhere between 5 and 11 independent human missions to Mars! By “independent“, I mean Mars mission programs that start from the ground up, and do not leverage each other’s technology, research, or manufacturing. In reality, it would be much more likely that technology advances would be shared, as well as NRE costs, lowering the mission costs for all involved. That is, many many more than 11 missions could have been sent.
Maybe if the Bush cabal thought there was oil on Mars they’d have told everybody that’s where Saddam was hiding weapons of mass transportation.
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Unconventional Individualist 
Thank god for going to war with Iraq. I’d rather see our country rid the world of evil dictators and terrorists, than see tax money wasted on a trips to mars. American lives are far more important than exploration to look at red rocks!
Fighting terrorism is a hell of lot more important than space exploration to mars. If our world is not stable and free from fanatical leaders who wish to kill innocent lives in the name and misunderstood and abused version of a god, how can important science exploration really be focused?
I get sick and tired of liberal stupid ass sites like this. Nothing like a bunch of arm chair presidents spewing their opinions on what the USA needs to do with its money. I guess everyone forgot that little incident called WWII. This is where our country liberated the world from tyranny because everyone was too busy making peace and then being steamrolled by the Nazi’s due to everyones ignorance. WAKE UP! If we don’t fight these terrorist pieces of shit, a city in Europe or the United States will go up in flames from a nuclear explosion. Then the rest of the world will be pissed at the US again for not doing anything, because you clowns want to live in a lazy socialist system. FUCK YOU!
Fighting the terrorists and evil leaders of the world is far more important then going on a glorilized trip to mars. The bullies of the world who wish to kill innocent people must be dealt with with extreme prejudice…meaning they must be killed.
As bleak as things seem right now, remember that it’s always darkest before dawn.
Someday the forces of fascism will be permanently abolished from the planet.
If we start now, we can start making the space ships needed to SEND THESE COCKSUCKERS INTO SPACE…FOREVER.
It is very important to realize the world is screwed up from wars that have been going on way before WWII and have propelled us into our present way of thinking (Us against Them). The fact that some people think that going to war to protect the USA citizens is far more important than preserving the human race reconfirms the fact that most of the people in our society today are fools and are victims of mass programming (that is brain washing through propaganda for those who don’t understand).
The fact that wars have to be waged is because of the intellectually stunted people that make up the majority of the masses. Most of society is like a herd of sheep, and that is how our wonderful leadership wants it to be. You are afraid that someone from Iran will nuke us or the UK, but what you do not understand is the close relationship between our country and the Iranian government in our past. I am sure you have heard of British Petroleum (BP), the original name of this company was the Iranian Oil Company. Do you really think we are at war right now for preventive maintenance? Come on, you really need to wake up. You should do your own research and if you are not completely blind, you will see that we are losing U.S. citizens right now everyday over there. (soldiers are citizens) – I served in the Iraq war. So, when you claim people like me are arm chair presidents you are wrong and don’t understand the perspective that military personnel have. The military industrial complex and large oil companies are the cause of these wars. And these wars will be the reason we will be attacked again not the reason we will live in peace forever in some dream world painted by far fetched promises. Yes it is more important to preserve our race as a whole rather than trying to only save the individual continents that we think should be saved. Imagine we finally do win the war; and then all the sheep would be dancing and partying in the streets as an alert goes out that a near earth asteroid is going to impact with the earth or that a super volcano is getting ready to blow and wipe us all of the face of the planet.
Then we could say: “well at least we won another war before our planet becomes part of the interstellar dust in our galaxy” Woo Hoo!
Not to mention if we did not explore and expand into space and the “evil doers” did, OMG then where could you hide….
Keep America Free And Think For Yourself……
Some of these comments here really reiterate the purpose of cutting funding to education in the US and worldwide. That is; when your population knows nothing of history and are to stupid to question the status quo you can get away with anything.
The War on Terror did not begin with Middle Eastern terrorists and the ‘evil dictators’ such as Saddam Hussein and Augusto Pinochet didn’t get into power on their own, the have the US military complex to thank for the positions they held.
Let’s get to Mars and beyond. We’re gonna need more land for the rapidly growing (mostly uneducated and brain-dead) population of Earth.
[…] A principios de octubre, la Administración de EEUU ya se había gastado más de 458 billones de dólares en la guerra de Irak. Ya se ha escrito mucho sobre qué otros fines se podía haber cubierto con esa enorme cantidad de dinero. Pero en estos días se han lanzado nuevas comparaciones: el gasto de la guerra es equivalente a lo que costaría enviar 11 misiones tripuladas a Marte. […]