Isn’t this the same nebulous, unfunded non-goal that was set a few years back, when the deadline was 2030 rather than sometime in the 2030s, and was taken so seriously that the end-date keeps changing and no funding, strategizing, or planning has yet materialized to make it come true (explaining the slip in end-date)?

But then, when Obama first announced that we were going to Mars, it was not nearly as memorable a moment as Kennedy’s speech talking about going to the moon.

When President Kennedy spoke at Rice University, on that hot September day in 1962, he spoke inspirational words, explaining the difficulties to overcome, and expressing his confidence that it could and would happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntb4eSAktnE

This Obama clown gives the boring announcement, “I’m excited to announce that we are working with our commercial partners to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions in deep space.”

An announcement so unexciting that he forgot to tell us about these exciting new habitats or who the commercial partners are. He failed to explain anything about why are these new habitats are any better than our very expensive ISS, which was supposed to do exactly what he says these new habitats are going to do.

Obama makes it sound like we are taking a routine trip, such as going to the corner grocery for a couple of eggs, except that we have partners for the journey. Kennedy’s words were motivational, demanding that we be bold, that we go not because it is easy but because it is hard. Obama’s words are mundane.

I believe that when man goes to Mars, it will be the commercial “partners” who go, while the government remains behind arguing over the correct way to go.

The environmentalists are going to go ape when actual work to colonize Mars starts and that includes many people in the sciences.

Government provided service is expensive at best and more likely to be inefficient and ineffective. Sometimes its deadly. Think Obamacare, Department of Motor Vehicles, VA, etc. And today, with the polarized political climate, any government led project taking more than one presidential term or a few budget turns is at risk of being killed or subject to mission creep.

NASA’s loss of vision after the moon landings was apparent. Those of us into it could feel it. The Apollo-Soyuz project was political mission and the Shuttle was a glorious but expensive machine that enabled expensive endeavors (no pun intended). To be fair, hindsight is 20/20 and we still had much to learn but now its time to apply what we have learned.

I’d like to see our government’s role in space shift to an enabler of a highly competitive private space industry with seed money (if needed) and as a provider infrastructure that can be shared by all competitors.