I Grew Up In A

There Are A Lot Of Reasons For Not Doing Something. And If Humanity Had Come Up With All The Reasons For Not Doing Something We Wouldn't Have Spread Across The Earth The Way We Have. There's A Curiosity, And I Would Submit That That Curiosity Will Put Human Beings On The Surface Of Mars.

Many Say Exploration Is Part Of Our Destiny, But It's Actually Our Duty To Future Generations And Their Quest To Ensure The Survival Of The Human Species.

There's No Doubt Who Was A Leader In Space After The Apollo Program. Nobody Came Close To Us. And Our Education System, In Science, Technology, Engineering And Math, Was At The Top Of The World. It's No Longer There. We're Descending Rather Rapidly.

Unless We Are Able To Commit To A Permanent Growing Settlement [on Mars], Then I Don't Think Just Going There With Humans And Coming Back Is Worth Doing. The Expense Of Planning To Come Back Is Like The People Who Left Europe To Come To America And Then To Turn Around And Go Back To Europe, It Really Doesn't Make Any Sense At All.

When We Set Out To Land People On The Surface Of Mars, I Think We Should As A Nation, As A World, Commit Ourselves To Supporting A Growing Settlement And Colonization There. To Visit A Few Times And Then Withdraw Would Be An Unforgivable Waste Of Resources.