We could have colonized Mars with the money we spent on the Iraq war

Nope, sorry, this doesn't compute:)

Now, if you want to say we could have put a man on Mars then you are right, but colonization? Dude, where is your head?

Just to get there is a problem because most of the spacecraft we have sent to land never make it!

Second, we haven't even built the hardware yet not to mention that we don't even know how we are going to keep folks from going nuts cooped up for months and months..not to forget that we need to put a real bathroom with a shower on this craft, there's one on the station now, but not on the shuttle.

Lots of problems need to be worked out.

And you have to live on Mars too!

Not to forget how long we will stay..
Remember, it's a long way there and a long, long way back!

No, I doubt if we could go today but we certainly will be able to go 10 years plus...

Its always to late unfortunately to do the right things...if the money were spent on housing the homeless..curing the sick ..encouraging life instead of beating people over the head about minutae of problems the whole world would be a better place..don't we all wish this would happen.But at the end of the day the government is elected to be in control of all that change that could and should happen..are you going to make a difference with your vote..this time around?

...but then, where would the money for fighting Mars' terrorists come from?

For starters, the Iraq War is paying for itself, they told us that at the beginning. Just look at how cheap gas is right now.

Secondly, if we had gone to Mars, Saddam would have just conspired with al Qaeda (who despised each other; you figure it out) to launch all their weapons of mass destruction at Mars and we'd have the Globals War on Terror, which just wouldn't work because my spellcheck says "globals" isn't a word.

Lastly, what would we do without all the pretty flowers the Iraqis gave us for liberating them.

How about just paying off all of the developing world's debts?

$6Tn ??????? And I stop and think when I want to make a purchase of over $100.

I would rather fight a country that used biological weapons against helpless Kurds than populate an uninhabitable planet. Iraq is the battle lines for of a terroristic group that might change the location of their attack not their reasoning.

Look at the cost of life as well. Seven astronauts died during the reentry of the Space Shuttle Columbia, and the space program was immediately slammed. On the other hand over 4,000 soldiers have been killed without much of an uproar.

I bet one of bushes cronies already has a contract to explore Mars for oil!

To hell with colonizing Mars. We need to be taking that money and cleaning up the mess we've made here on Earth. That's just like a human to fuck something up and move to the next big thing to fuck up.. *sigh* We're not as smart as we think we are.

Can we fix the problems on earth first? Also, why do we need to colonize Mars? Why do we love colonizing so much? Most of the current political crisis in the world is a result of colonizing.

Yeah, but who would want to colonize Mars? That place is a shithole. What we should have done is save up a little more and start a new society under the sea with mermaids and mermans. That would have been cool.

Great, great comments in this thread!

Yes forget about colonizing Mars, and for sure.... what is done is done.... but what a shame! Isn't it time that we stop and think and start learning about mistakes from our pasts?

Any amount of money diverted from the war to NASA would have been beneficial to this world. I’ve said this a million times since joining current but I guess I have to say it again.

Ecofreaks stop saying we need to focus on “cleaning up our mess” whenever NASA is discussed. Do your homework. Go to NASA.gov and take a look at what NASA is doing

Take note that the qualifier "could have" is used.

The point that an insane amount of money has been needlessly pissed away shouldn't be lost in debate.

I definitely would have replaced coal energy, and then used the left over money to provide treatment for all the people whose water supplies have been polluted by so-called clean coal. Oh, and then I'd make sure their water supplies were cleaned. And provide them with clean water until said supplies were cleaned. And then, just for good measure, I'd make sure that the entire population had health care, so that if anyone or their families were ever effected by pollution again, they would be able to receive immediate treatment, not hypothetical benevolent dictator money magically pulled from the black hole that is Iraq.

We could have fed the world with the money we spent on the Iraq war.

Why would bush want to do something constructive like this, when he could instead make his daddy happy by finishing his fight.

Bush could have built a Death Star for himself with the yet to be investigated funds which have disappeared so far - i'm not too sure he hasn't already , and missions to Mars are just diversions - i bet he's gonna just hop on a shuttle , retreat to his Death Star , and then destroy us .

Malathion, I believe Reagan already started the death star. He's probably just retrofitting the old one right now.

Maybe we shouldn't be looking at it as "we could have colonized Mars" but rather as "maybe we still can do something for our post-Sept 11 veterans" in the form of a present-day GI Bill.

In that scenario, the Senate overwhelmingly voted FOR a present-day GI Bill just last week that would allow post Sept. 11 vets a chance at returning to normalcy and reintegrating back into society. But interestingly enough, funding this category of vets to go to a four year college or technical institution would cost us just a week of what we spend in Iraq. Given that, President Bush is still threatening to veto the bill because he says it's 'too expensive.'

So in this war, is it safe to say that our President (and Repub. candidate John McCain now, too, apparently) really doesn't care much for his troops unless they dedicate their entire lives to fighting his battles?

There seems to be more at stake here than having missed an opportunity to colonize Mars.

Well, if we would all stop waging wars with each other we could use that money to do amazing things like this and benefit all mankind. But, DEFINITELY easier said than done.....

Hopin the best for this article.

So much money. I cant believe this country has just sat ideally by as this has happened. education, scientific research, economic help....