[idlewords]

Apollo was not the product of a 'purposeful and unified nation'. The period 1961-1972 was one of the most politically turbulent in American history, to an extent we forget today. Politically motivated bombings were routine news! Apollo was the product of its time in interesting ways, but let's not deceive ourselves about America in 1969 being any more unified and purposeful than it is today.

I have nothing against doing hard things, but I think sending people to Mars is a hard, dumb thing, and that the money for that will be better spent on mechanized probes to more interesting places (like Ganymede or Europa) along with space telescopes. Other people feel differently!

But I am tired of the amount of special pleading in this debate. Everything is hard on Mars, because it is on Mars. Antarctica has water and all the air you can breathe, and yet we can barely function there. If we send people to Mars, it will be a one-shot deal like Apollo was, and then all the space nerds will be sad again. Better to fund robots at 1/10 of the level of a manned mission, and get to explore the entire solar system instead. If people are dead set on humanity having a 'backup plan', then the Moon is right next door and we can even set it up with wifi.

[TeMPOraL]

> Better to fund robots at 1/10 of the level of a manned mission, and get to explore the entire solar system instead.

The unfortunate reality is, once people settle for this, the 1/10 will get cut to 1/1000 because "all you do is send robots to dead rocks". Funding science isn't sexy these days.

> If people are dead set on humanity having a 'backup plan', then the Moon is right next door and we can even set it up with wifi.

For some x-risks Moon may be just a bit too close. I understand that the x-risk avoidance argument is a niche one, though. IMO we should absolutely do the Moon - and then Mars or Venus (or both).