To Mars Or Not?

I remember once going to the University of Florida microfilm collection and surveying newspaper articles from back in the Nixon era. If you’ll remember, it was Richard Nixon’s arch-political rival John F. Kennedy who, as President laid out the challenge for this nation to put a man on the moon and safely return before the 1960s ended. Nixon himself wasn’t interested in JFK’s dream, and our Apollo moon missions were actually cut short before their scheduled completions. However, at the same time, Vice-President Spiro Agnew was calling on the U.S. to land a man on Mars (and safely return) by 1989! Apparently, Agnew and Nixon weren’t exactly on the same page with our space program. Instead of making Mars plans, we decided instead to spend decades circling the Earth in various spacecrafts. The enthusiasm for space exploration during the 70’s was so politically weak that when the design of the Space Shuttle was to be decided, a cheap, inferior tile-protected shuttle was selected over a more expensive, but much safer and more durable casing. We have that to thank for the Columbia disaster! Anyway, in 1990, a year after we would have safely returned from Mars (according to Agnew’s “challenge”), then-President George H.W. Bush publicly challenged the country to land on and safely return people from Mars by 2020! And nothing that I know of was done then, unless you consider the paltry space station efforts with the Russians over the past few years to be of some value. Then, a few years ago, our current President George W. Bush decided that the space program should also have a safe Mars landing and return as a major driving goal. So, what I am missing here? Is anyone actually listening to these people? Is anything actually being done? I think that it would be a great project to go to Mars and back, but it would be greater to do it as part of an international effort that involved Europe, Russia, Japan, and China as well. I think we should get over our nationalist urges for glory on alien globes and do this one for humanity, period. I remember a few years ago how ridiculous it was when the ice cleared over the North Pole and the Russians proudly planted a Russian flag at the bottom of the sea there!