The value of a liberal arts education.

Who else would make a reasonable comparison between Bush's proposal to go to the Moon and Mars and the canal boom of the 1830's which led to a six-year depression?

I'm all for pushing space exploration and exploitation, but I don't see the purpose of setting up a permanent base on the Moon. Compared to a space station in earth orbit or at an L-5 point, the expense of sending material to the Moon in order to build Mars rockets there is staggeringly ridiculous. And equally ridiculous are Bush's estimates of $12 billion to fund the first five years of the Moon-Mars initiative, including new Moon probes and design of the "Crew Exploration Vehicle." If Boeing is going to spend $7.5 billion to design its new 7E7 airliner, which uses well-understood engineering and isn't going into space, how can the design cost of the Crew Exploration Vehicle be about the same?

This Moon-Mars boondoggle has already taken its first victim: the Hubble telescope. Sad to see something producing useful science being thrown away solely for the purpose of trying to make Bush look like a visionary.

And I thought this cartoon was absolutely dead-on.