Is Mars the logical next step for the human exploration of space?
I’m not smart enough to know the answer to that. Mars is much more interesting than the Moon, but the Moon is easier and cheaper to reach. A Moon base could give us useful experience of living on another world, but it could also create a detour that would detract us from Mars. My agent, Russ Galen, made an interesting analogy. He compared this era of Mars exploration to the time of Lewis and Clark. To most Americans two hundred years ago, Oregon and Washington were far-off, exotic places about which they knew little, if they had heard of them at all. And today, places like Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris are equally exotic, and few people have heard of them. Perhaps, a hundred years from now, they will be as familiar as Oregon and Washington. After all these years, what mysteries does Mars still hold secret? The greatest mystery is whether Mars ever gave birth to life. The Earth did, but there’s no guarantee that other good planets do the same–the fact is, we don’t know how readily
