Alan - Maybe it's not my place to mention it, but perhaps the reason that George Bush, after hearing all the news from the Mars Rovers, decided to send Astronauts to the Moon is due to just a bit of confusion.  After all, both destinations are in space, have four letters in their names, and both start with a Capital M.

As for the competition to get into Space, I am not hoping for one or another to win.  I want the doors to open and let us in.  I don't care who finds the key that unlocks the entrance.  Just let me see the other side, someday soon.

I can't stress enough that it all depends on your goals.  Mars might be pretty cool for colonization given its high ice content (far FAR greater than the moon I imagine).  In a colonization scenario, I'm worried about the low gravity on Mars and wonder if that would affect a life long exposure to it.  Probably.  I like NASAs newest proposal to send Astronauts to an Near Earth Asteroid as that is closer and who knows, if we surveyed all such NEOs maybe some will have very high ice content and even the materials we'd need for a super large space station that can gen its own Earthlike gravity.  Use the excess debris from mining the asteroid as a radiation shield around the station and I think you'd have a more doable off-world colony than a long trek to Mars where you have to continually fight the gravity well and atmosphere.  To me Ceres might even be better than Mars although it is very far.  I think that sucker is darn near all ice.

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