Moon is part of Mars

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Mars is always foolish distraction.  The project is too large and expensive, and practical benefit is too dubious for it to makes sense for a unilateral single nation nationally sponsored vanity effort.

Also, given the atmosphere in the world and the general trend in development of world climate, unilateral national effort would likely heighten tension and potentially lead to war as threat of imminent success by anyone would be seen as some celestial land grab.

I think for the foreseeable future, any declaration of intention to pursue manned mars exploration by any country can be seen as a deceit meant to make it look like the country is a great leader of mankind thinking great thoughts, while deflecting attention away from lack of matching investment and real effort.

I mostly agree.  That being said, I still think a let's-go-to-Mars programme would have tremendous spinoff benefits.  No one would actually need to make the trip, just hire loads of engineers and technicians and have them behave as IF someone is going to make the trip.  Sort of like reaping all the tech benefits of a war without actually having to kill people.

Boru