Forget the moon and Mars

That seems to be Rand Simberg’s conclusion in Popular Mechanics. Even McCain, the likely next president, seems lukewarm on W’s backing of returning to the moon for a permanent base–now that millions have been spent planning to do so. And, without a microgravity base out there to start from, that’s far less expensive than trying to get out of Earth’s gravity well, you can forget human travel to Mars anytime soon. At least the NYTimes will be happy. They’ve always favored robots over astronauts.