Forty five years after the historic landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, without forgetting the good Michael Collins, who waited patiently for them in orbit, NASA officially announced a manned mission to Mars by 2030. By this announce NASA expresses, at least, a large confidence in the availability of the United States taxpayers to keep on supporting the space agency’ programs, even beyond the “low cost” policy, to which many today charge the responsibility for the space program’ failures and delays.
I take the freedom to applaud the NASA plan with several reserves and no little suspicion. Perhaps, when President Bush announced in 2004, the famous manifesto “Moon, Mars and Beyond”, did he aim to propose and consolidate, in fact, a methodology, more than a plan?