I want to go to Mars. Not me personally, although I can't imagine turning down the chance if it was offered, but I want to see humans land on Mars.

I wasn't even born yet the *last* time men walked on the moon, much less the *first* time. I've only known the space shuttle and Mir, communications sattelites and unmanned probes.

We landed on the moon in 1969. That's over 30 years ago now. We did it with the technology of the 60s, don't you think we could do it now cheaper, easier, and better?? Where are my moon colonies? Where are my manned missions to Mars? My generation was supposed to be having kids on the moon, now it doesn't even look like my grandkids will be able to even visit there.

Where are my great space achievements? A whole generation has been born and grown to adulthood since the last moon walk. Since then, no human has left low Earth orbit. I find that insanely frustrating and infuriating.

Don't give me this "going to Mars is harder than we thought!" crap. I don't want to hear it. Do you think going to the moon when the only computers were the size of rooms was *easy*? Kennedy said it best: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard!"

Don't give me this "But people are starving on Earth, we should spend money on that instead!" Do you think the money that continually gets cut from the space program goes to feed homeless people? If you do, you're naive as hell. It goes to the Pentagon, where all the money goes. We need to cut some off their piece of the pie and give it to NASA. Or even better, to hell with NASA, lets withdraw from that stupid UN space treaty that basically says nobody can own anything in space and let private corporations colonize the moon. Private industry isn't going to the moon if they can't own the mineral rights to the lands they build on.

Do you realize the race to the moon was indirectly responsible for all the great gadgets we have today? The US had to miniturize *everything* for the space program, because we didn't have rockets as big as the Russians had and we had to fly with as little weight as we could. This drive to make things smaller and smaller for the space program can be seen in everything from your desktop computer to your PDA today. Don't give me this "space travel doesn't benefit mankind" crap. It's simply not true.

And I really don't want to hear about how dangerous space travel is. OF COURSE it's dangerous. Do you think Christopher Columbus or whoever that Viking guy was just set out in his ship one day and said "I think I'll go take a leisurely sail west today and see what I discover." NO. They were pioneers, many suffered and died so others could succeed. If they had had the same attitude then about sailing the oceans that we have about space exploration, nobody would have discovered the New World until about 1910. I don't want to wait that long to go to Mars. If we send seven guys up to go to Mars, we make sure we've got the best equipment we can get and the best rockets and everything. But then if they die, we don't put our heads in our hands and cry and weep and wail and pull away from our goal. We honor them, we learn from their deaths, and we TRY AGAIN.

I remember back in 1984 or so I was reading a book about manned missions to Mars. It was written in 1975 or so. It said that we'd be landing on Mars NO LATER than 1986. Even at 10 years old, this sickened me. I knew we weren't going to be on Mars in the next two years. And it's not because missions to Mars are hard, or because we don't know about the effects of weightlessness or we don't know about solar flares or stuff. It's because we lost our nerve. Plain and simple. Let's get it back.

-- Dave