.

    On December 1st, 1999 (two days before NASA´s 2nd of two 1999 Mars mission failures), Rich asked President George W. Bush here in Washington D.C. if he shared his father´s dreams of getting humans to Mars.    Here´s the live footage of the question, and President-elect Bush´s enjoyable initial reaction...

 *Special thanks go to the Republican Jewish Coalition for admirably letting Rich ask that universally important question despite Rich´s not even being Jewish.   Also, thanks to the Mars Society for calling this opportunity to Rich´s attention in a sufficiently timely manner.  

Quicktime	Real Media	Windows Media Player
DOWNLOAD SPEED: 56k	DOWNLOAD SPEED:56k	DOWNLOAD SPEED:56k
DOWNLOAD SPEED: ISDN		DOWNLOAD SPEED:ISDN
DOWNLOAD SPEED: T1
Quicktime is freely available at: http://www.quicktime.com	Real Media is freely available at: http://www.real.com	Windows Media Player is also free. With a plug-in, it can even  be used with NetScape too.   Meanwhile, free technical support is  available here, and one can also try calling Microsoft at numbers  listed there (including perhaps  800-936-4900).

   *Again, special thanks go to the Republican Jewish Coalition for admirably letting Rich ask that universally important question despite how Rich is not even Jewish.  

       Anyhow, when the event concluded, President Bush and Rich had a great one-on-one, occasionally humorous chat for nearly five minutes.   Among other comments, the president said he does share his father´s enthusiasm for the human exploration (and potential colonization) of Mars.   He was very convincing when saying this, in fact.   However, he would need to know more regarding how much going there would cost before he could speak publicly in favor of such projects.   (Editor´s note:  His father´s prestige did not benefit from his own aggressive endorsement of a humans-to-Mars program.).     
       Rich then quoted him NASA´s latest price for a crewed Mars mission (approximately $50 billion).   The president paused, and then said that Mars exploration seems like a project that corporations might be best suited to accomplish (instead of bureaucratic governmental entities).    Tax incentives struck him as a fiscally prudent means of empowering corporations to accomplish our goals regarding the Red Planet.   The "guaranteed loans" option did not prompt nearly as enthusiastic a reaction, however.   Meanwhile, the  pro-entrepreneurial "Mars Prize" (cash award) possibility was not discussed, unfortunately.  Neither were some other cost-reducing, pro-entrepreneurial space program reform proposals that are still not getting much attention.  

      As the subsequent discussion was not broadcast on national television so Space.com, SpaceViews.com and other news services only knew to report on his initial reply.   Here are the known articles still in existence which covered the public exchange, though:  Space.com, & SpaceViews.com.

Here's a link to President Bush's interesting new space exploration initiative website...

    Regarding  former President George H. Bush´s expression of desire back in 1989 that we send humans to Mars by 2019, the middle segment of the video available halfway down at this article displays it.   NASA responded by quoting him a $450 billion dollar price (supposedly for a comprehensive plan that also involved permanent colonization of both the Moon and Mars, though).  Regardless, however, as Dr. Robert Zubrin subsequently published, that price was nevertheless at least a few times higher than it needed to be (and it was laden with pork barrel spending).   NASA now agrees that the Battlestar Galactica approach of sending along the fuel with which to return from Mars was excessive and over-priced.  

     Meanwhile, to learn more about China´s recent advances in space, and its aspirations regarding the Moon and Mars, please visit here.

    Why should we care about colonizing space?   First, we could probably repay our  record high $8 trillion dollar national debt with the spin-off benefits resulting from colonization efforts on the Moon and Mars (for instance).  Such breakthroughs would pertain to energy production, the biotech sector, robotics, mining, chemistry, and telemedicine, to name a few.   Additionally, students would more eagerly embrace math & science like they did during the 1960´s when eventual inventors like Bill Gates & Steve Jobs initially fell in love with such subjects due to inspiration derived from space exploration.   Also, once we´re finally out there, we could even learn to view others as fellow Earthlings, not enemies.   
      Nevertheless, "baby boomers" will retire in droves by 2010 so, financially speaking, we do not have much time left to fix the stagnating status quo...   Is NASA doing its job regarding Mars, or is it repeatedly letting us down regarding our neighboring planet?  

.