DanMargarita.com

Several news outlets have reported that President Bush will propose that the focus of future space missions will be a manned space flight to the moon, an event that's never been accomplished...since the last time it was accomplished.

The reports follow the jubilation of the successful landing of NASA's rover Spirit on Mars last week. Video footage showed euphoric NASA employees hugging and popping champagne corks as they gleefully celebrated a feat that they first achieved in 1976.

One news anchor actually said that "the photos transmitted back from the red planet show that the planet is really red." Perhaps that might have been news 400 years ago when Galileo was calling Mars "the red planet" as he looked at it through his telescope.

Not everyone has been that successful with their Mars missions lately. The British found their hopes dashed when they lost contact with their space probe "Beagle 2" after it landed on Mars. If ever a machine could've failed due to a poor self-image, it was that one. At least NASA has had the good sense to give adventurous sounding names to its probes such as "Viking," "Pathfinder" and "Spirit." I imagine that "Beagle 2" simply shut down out of embarrassment. If they were going to name it after a dog, there were plenty of breeds that would've have better represented the mission. They could've named it "Retriever," "Bloodhound" or "St. Bernard" which is best known for carrying small kegs of rum to avalanche-stranded skiers.

I haven't been able to find out what happened to Beagle 1. Perhaps someone at the British space center left the door open and it ran away.

Scientists believe that water once flowed on Mars and are anxious to see if any form of life ever existed there. Experts seem reasonably certain that the creatures that have constantly tried to take over the earth in science fiction movies probably don't exist. If they do, they might not want to come here if they've seen our movies where the earth-bound humans repeatedly outwit and defeat creatures capable of inter-planetary travel. For over a hundred years Martians have been portrayed in books and movies as little green men, conquerors of our planet and even a loveable guest on the TV show "My Favorite Martian." The one creature I do hope they find is the Looney Tunes character Marvin Martian, best known for his phrase "You earthlings make me very angry."

If there are any life forms on Mars, scientists believe it will be microbial. In 1996 NASA scientists announced that they discovered compounds on a meteorite from Mars that had landed in Antarctica and contained evidence of life on Mars. Insert your own Dan Quayle joke here. This claim was later dismissed and like Dan Quayle, has drifted off into obscurity.

It's calming to know that NASA has set its sights on reasonable goals. If you were able to land a man on the moon in 1972, you should be able to do it with today's technology.

After the tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia, it's understandable that NASA would want to proceed cautiously with its program. I think that NASA should continue playing it safe by duplicating past achievements. For instance, it might only cost $1 billion to build a plane that can fly solo across the Atlantic.

In fairness, President Bush is also expected to announce plans to send a manned (or womanned) spacecraft to Mars, which would represent a bold step in space exploration.

Don't get me wrong---I'm all for space exploration. If man had ceased to be scientifically curious, we'd still be living in caves.

It's just that there's a lot of problems here on earth that need to be addressed that the billions spent on duplicating previous feats could possibly solve.

Call me when we get to Mars. I'll be in my cave.