Both. But, go back to the moon as prerequisite first steps toward manned Mars exploration. A prolonged program, not just a "one-shot" deal. It also turns out that static-levitation of moon dust may be a problem for optical astronomy from the lunar surface. Dust on Mars might be worse, although it's atmosphere isn't going to be much of a hindrance compared to earth's. If the nations of the world stopped spending so much money on war, we could actually talk about funding a manned, interstellar mission at relatavistic speeds in the next 100 years. On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Gary Vardon <gvardon@webtv.net> wrote:
Fellow SLASers,
The planetary society directors thinks that the United States should do manned missions to Mars and not do manned missions to the moon I disagree.