It's Space Week on the Science Channel, Interstellar is a wowing audiences in theaters and a European probe has landed on a comet.
America once sent people to the Moon.
On September 12th, 1962 at Rice University President Kennedy announced that America would go to the Moon within eight years. On July 20th, 1969 it was done. The last human left the Moon on December 19th, 1972.
In eight years time, 50 years would have come and gone without a single return.
In 1972, Americans believed that humanity would have had returned to the Moon a lot sooner that it has. It was believed that there would have been a permanent lunar colony by now. After all, Europeans had founded permanent settlements in the New World immediately after Christopher Columbus first crossed the Atlantic Ocean. So, it would make sense that history would have followed suit.
The next step, Mars.
A manned mission to Mars could feasibly launch sometime in the 2030s. It should not be a US-only mission but an international effort with public and private funds.
http://www.space.com/...
If China and the US can agree to a climate deal, then maybe the world could agree on a combined Mars mission?