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[Thomas Beckett <thomas AT tbeckett.com>]

Stephen Messer wrote:
> > As usual, David Rees is dead-on and screamingly funny:
> >
> > http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war30.html
>
> Interesting.  As a supporter of Mars exploration, I didn't really get
> the joke, but I think this is one of those preaching-to-the-choir
> things.  :)  The strip did remind me that it was time to renew my 
> membership to the Mars Society, so they just got my $50 for
> 2004.  The strip suggests that this is all another Bush administration
> boondoggle designed to distract from Iraq, so I wonder if the 
> author realizes that Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Dick Gephardt,
> and Dennis Kucinich have all expressed support for human Mars
> exploration.  

I think that is the point, that the Mars project is just so much cynical 
electioneer vaporware on the part of Bush.  One also has to ask with 
what money Bush plans to pay for this, with the likely answer being just 
to increase the already-astronomical federal deficit with no plan to pay 
it back.  That is, if the idea doesn't just quiety fade away after 
November 2004.

And then there's the whole militarization of space subtext.

Dean and Clark are probably the most significant
> voices there, as the two top Democratic candidates in 
> nationwide polls.

Supporting Mars exploration is one thing and having a responsible way to 
pay for it is something else.  I am pleased that Dean and Clark support 
continued space exploration, but I would also expect them to be more 
realistic in their approach to it.

TaB