By George!

GWB has called for further moon voyages and manned flights to Mars within the next 20 years. Interestingly, I happen to be reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and when I read the above news, the following passage immediately sprung to mind.

A manned mission to Mars, called for by the first President Bush in a moment of passing giddiness, was quietly dropped when someone worked out that it would cost $450 billion and probably result in the deaths of all the crew (their DNA torn to tatters by high-energy solar particles from which they could not be shielded).

Besides which it would take at least six months to get there. And you'd have to eat food from a tube for a year or two. And all that poo would have to go somewhere. And what would you do once you got there? Play golf? Take pictures of rocks? You'd really have to love your job (and your president), wouldn't you? Nice one, George.