That’s a pretty low bar. An ant could crawl across it…

There are a dozen Members of Congress — on both sides of the aisle — ready to go on the attack against any member who seriously proposed such an initiative. Democrats would oppose it as a “waste of money when other priorities are unfunded”. Republicans would attack it as wasteful spending in an era of deficit spending. It is a perfect storm.

There is not one single Member of Congress who will stick their neck out on this one.

Bob is demonstrating that he is a real rocket scientist.

– Al

“Politics is not rocket science, which is why rocket scientists do not understand politics.”

Just don’t think he’s in the right place for growth stable economy.

I would go with eliminating the Fed Reserve. Monetary policy has to be dealt with first. Dollar currency valuation has to nailed to gold/silver/commodities metrics. You can’t continue using secret, arbitrary use of fraudulent metrics to value money.

Other than gold currency value needs to be tied to energy production, usage and store. People should be allowed to go to the Energy Bank (good bank) and purchase dollars/credits.

Prices of goods including houses need to come down.

Americans need to be educated producing quality, competitive product.
And best of all people could start saving more of their money.

One of the main reasons we as a species venture into space is:

-Exploration
-establish human habitat
-wealth creation

Does anyone have proof positive there couldn’t exist a celestial body in our solar system or on our stellar neighbour harbouring gold deposits in excess of 158,000 tons as of year 2006; 50 times greater than has ever been mined of this planet?

However, given how much money we are printing and handing out to other industries (e.g. banking and auto) – if there ever was a time to get money for a Mars program (or SBSP), the time is now.

“Mandate All New Vehicles are Flexible Fuel Vehicles. Sustainably-produced biofuels can create jobs, protect the environment and help end oil addiction – but only if Americans drive cars that will take such fuels. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work with Congress and auto companies to ensure that all new vehicles have FFV capability – the capability by the end of his first term in office.”

I think McCain was for this too. There are probably quite a few Congresspeople that would back it as well. Zubrin’s plan stresses as a central point that flex-fuel vehicles need to take methanol as well as gas and ethanol, but I don’t know if that’s what the politicians would implement (if anything). I’d guess with the current situation the government would have to help the automakers to make this kind of thing happen.

As for humans to Mars, I’m hard pressed to imagine how that would be a timely stimulus to help us get out of our curent economic problems. If it has merit (personally I’m much more concerned with how we get to the destinations rather than which ones we pick) it probably belongs in the regular funding cycle.