Obama/McCain and space exploration

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

I missed this one. It's not just a frozen rock, PhiGam. Mars has a lot of great scenery. It actually has mountains three times as tall as Mount Everest, canyons three times as deep and five times as long as the Grand Canyon. It also has a ton of dry riverbeds. You also need to look at the fact that its unexplored surface may hold unimagined resources for future humanity, as well as answers to some of the deepest philosophical questions that thinking women and men have pondered on for eons. I honestly think Mars may someday provide a home for a dynamic new branch of human civilization. I also think with future human settlement and growth there, it will provide an engine of progress for all of humanity for generations to come. But all that Mars holds will remain beyond reach unless and until women and men land there. You would be surprised, temperatures on Mars can get pretty warm. Mars also has water frozen into its soil, as well as large quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, all in forms readily accessible to those inventive enough to use them. Also, these four elements are not only the basis of food and water, but of plastics, wood, paper, clothing, etc etc. You can also get rocket fuel out of those same elements too. That doesn't sound like a frozen rock to me.

it all sounds nice but we are still a long ways off from establishing any kind of settlement there and besides with all the squabbling that humans do HERE or Earth we all can't come together and finance a trip together. You think we would ahve done that by now..I mean hey...we got a hooptie of a space station in orbit so if we ALL pooled our resources, we ALL could go to Mars. However, you know behind the scenes everyone is fighting to be the first country there.