This John Tierney column-- the second in a series, and one that recycles bits and bobs from his last one is part of his ongoing attempt to figure out the best way for the United States to get to Mars. In this case his suggestion seems to be privitize that!. But the substance of the column is totally unimportant on some level because he begs a serious question: why bother spending any resources on getting to Mars right now at all?
The closest Tierney gets is in the second paragraph where he writes that Mars, is " the best undeveloped real estate left in the solar system" which again begs the question-- what the heck is he talking about? It's not like the Moon has really proven that great an investment. What in Mars makes it great real estate?
I can understand wanting to get to Mars for the thrill/glory/whatever of discovery. Discovery can be a wonderful and important (if often useless) thing, but the real estate value of Mars is almost certainly nil. There's no resources there for us to harvest, no little green men for us to make contact with.
Tierney is right on calling NASA out on the relative pointlessness of Shuttle Flights and the total waste that is the Space Station Discovery. But we shouldn't be turning those resources into a wild goose chase to Mars. We should be turning them back towards Earth. We should be finding ways to use this technology to monitor and help (in some way) repair this planet, and explore at greater intensity such things as the bottom of the Ocean. It might not sound as glamorous, but it'll be a lot more helpful.
Mars, at least in this budget climate, is a complete and total waste of time. Bush knew it was a canard when he promtly stopped talking about it when it didn't poll well. Didn't Tierny get the memo?
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