Victor wrote:

Pierre wrote:

Don't forget Bush wants the end of Hubble and want s to deicde what's good in science...

Actually it is NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe who decided that fixing Hubble is not worth an astronaut's life or losing another shuttle. 

Yup! Much safer to send them to Mars.

A board of investigation was set up to determine the risks involved.  I personally think the risk is not that high and that a human service mission should go ahead as planned.

Wrt. the US space program - I prefer Bush's Vision for Space Exploration.  From what I have read on Space.com, Kerry is still stuck in a 'low-Earth orbit' research mentality.  With Kerry as president, space enthusiasts like us can kiss promising missions like the Jupiter Ice Moons and Pluto-Kuiper Express missions good-bye.

You're not getting there with Bush's plan.

Let's see if I can summarize his "space vision":
   - Increase NASA budget by about $1B/yr
   - raise about another $1B by cutting ALL science
   - Apply this vast sum to putting a man on Mars.

The most optimistic estimates I've heard for a Mars
mission put the price at about $500B.  Bush's "vision"
will get us there in a couple hundred years.

Look, I'd be really excited to send a manned mission
to Mars, but you don't fund that with tax cuts.  It
would take a national goal (with national sacrifice)
and international collaboration on a scale that this
country is not capable of.

Here's an intelligence test. Bush's vision will:
  A.  Actually land a man on Mars
  B.  Funnel truckloads of money to aerospace
      corporations for "feasibility studies" and
      the like.
  C.  Kill all science, just when it was getting
      interesting.
  D.  B and C.

If you answered A, you're deluded.

Remember, for a tiny fraction of a manned mission
to Mars we could send unmanned probes to *every planet
in the solar system*.

-E