When can we expect man to walk on the surface of Mars?
The current NASA Mars program is a pipe dream that will disappear with Dubya in January. There simply isn’t the technology, money or political will to do a space program of that magnitude. It’s conceivable that another country, like China, may do something as a national project, or that a consortium of many nations might be put together but it’s all highly unlikely given the current state of technology. Robotic probes are vastly cheaper and easier and will provide vastly more data for the buck. Politically, the Democrats aren’t interested and the Republicans are blowing every dollar they can scrape together on their oil wars so neither party, if in power, will be willing to spend the zillions of dollars necessary to fund the program as currently envisioned. As a practical matter, the technology to mount a real mission to Mars in a big, fast ship, which might make it worthwhile, is decades away at least. Unless there are major increases in technology, don’t hold your breath waiting for
