Let's start with the President's 2009 NASA budget request, which "... would leave NASA with about $420 million less to work with in 2009 than the White House told the agency four years ago it could expect by then." (Space News, p. 12).  One thing I liked when President Bush announced his new vision for NASA in 2004 was the message that NASA was not going to receive a massive budget increase regardless of its performance.  At most it would receive $500 million more each year, a "go as you pay" approach as it's been called.  In other words, NASA had four years to demonstrate that it could earn the right to a bigger budget, at least that's my interpretation.  So, can we assume that the 2009 NASA budget request demonstrates the President's displeasure with NASA's troubled Constellation program?

Turning to the Mars Society (Space News, p. 19) and the push for human exploration of Mars, I've got ten words: "Not going to happen anytime soon on the government's dime."  Just read the space comments of the current Presidential candidates and the reason is obvious.  If you haven't read them, permit me to summarize what they are all saying:  "I love America, I love apple pie, NASA is as American as apple pie, space exploration is important, blah, blah, blah."  You can barely get them to talk in detail about the Moon mission, let alone Mars.  The candidates are driven by their perception of what is important to most of America, period.  Mars doesn't make the bottom of the Top 500 list of priorities for government spending, period.  It simply doesn't matter how wonderful and scientifically valuable and briefly nationally uplifting a visit to Mars would be, period.  End of story.  Period.  Want Mars?  You've got a better chance if you ask Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or the rest of the world's billionaires to pay for it.  And given the right approach, perhaps they will.  I understand Gates is looking for a new planet where he can sell more copies of Windows Vista, and Buffet must be tired of traveling to the same-old same-old Davos chalet.

Turning to history, Space News has been running a series entitled "50 Years of Spaceflight" (p.16).  Think back to 1969, the apex of the successful Apollo program.  And yet, as explained so well by space historian Roger Launius, "A 1969 Harris Poll found that 64 percent of U.S. citizens polled thought NASA's then current $4 billion annual budget was too much..." (p. 16).  Yes, there was the Vietnam War, political turmoil, urban unrest and much civil angst and anger, but it was also NASA's shining year. Yes, today we have different concerns that aren't as immediately explosive and paralyzing as those of 1969, but they are front and center in America's collective conscious.  I submit that within this context, which will engage us for the foreseeable future, NASA's less-than-stellar (again, sorry, couldn't resist) "Apollo redux + Mars" will not receive the consistent Presidential and Congressional support required for success.  Period.

Want the Moon?  Want Mars?  Want the entire solar system?  The history lesson is don't depend on sustained political support and thus government financial support.  Instead, build an economically (read commercially) viable Earth-orbit-asteroid-Moon-Mars transportation infrastructure that serves multiple markets here and out there, and then you will have economically sustainable (read permanent) settlements throughout the solar system.  This will not happen solely because a President gives NASA a government-mandated target date that ignores the timeframe within which the private sector can develop the necessary aforementioned infrastructure.  Period.