Hi, Jim Gibson wrote:

A couple of curiosity points caught my eye. My understanding of the current theory for a trip to mars would take about 2 years; six month to get there, wait a year or so for the right alignment of mars and earth and then six months to return.

FWIW, I've heard the first trip would be about three years, including 8 months each way travel time. However, a day or so ago there was a piece on NASA TV that said that could be cut back to one year total if nuclear propulsion could be perfected.

The first manned Mars expeditions would attempt to orbit the red planet in advance of landings -- much as Apollo 8 and 10 orbited the moon but did not land. I have not heard that. All the recent discussion (again, on NASA TV) involves a landing.

The other thing that I am wondering comes from this statement: Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing programs that do not support the new effort. There are already a lot of people in planetary exploration that think too much of the NASA pie is being spent on ISS. I'm not sure about that but do wonder where the hundreds of billions it will cost to go back to the Moon and on to Mars will come from if we (the US) try to do this alone.

Personally I hope will be an international effort. Patrick (speaking for myself and not as a NASA volunteer)