more on mars
since you asked, madalene...

rovers on mars are awesome. electronics and programming technology today can make rovers do things that are astounding, like think for themselves on a rudimentary level. in ten years, the rovers will probably be capable of making sophisticated decisions, and may be better at some scientific tasks than any human scientist.
however, robots are still not human scientists. while it may be possible to put the scientific method on a chip, the entirety of a human brain can't be emulated in hardware. from a purely scientific point of view, in order to truly understand mars, we have to have both robots and scientists working together on the surface of the planet.

but that's not the whole story. i gave my counter-argument to the budget issue some time ago, so i won't repeat it here, but basically my counter-argument is this: i understand how people can oppose a human mission to mars on a financial basis, and i agree that it is a travesty that money isn't being spent on feeding the hungry, educating the masses, curing cancer and aids, exploring the oceans, etc., but what must be understood is that if $X billion isn't being spent on sending people to mars, that $X billion isn't going to fund any of these.

but why spend $X billion in the first place? even if it wouldn't otherwise go toward other worthy causes? because it gives humanity something to strive for. the public's opinion of science and scientists is abysmal. students don't care about science and math. the bush administration repeatedly ignores scientific evidence. if nothing is done to change people's views of science, innovations will stagnate, and science as we know it will be reduced to a few visionaries scattered across the globe striving to be accepted as legitimate. a human mission to mars is just what we need. hearing about valiant scientists and engineers testing the bounds of human knowledge against all odds will inspire kids to learn science and math, and become scientists and engineers and mathematicians and doctors. watching these brave astronauts triumph against adversity every night on the news will renew joe sixpack's confidence in scientists, and inspire him to channel-surf to the discovery channel, or pick up a copy of the brief history of time.

and it's not just about the science. it's about having a clear goal, something that people can unite toward. the human exploration of space, if done right, has the potential to bring people together, to watch in wonder at the power of the human spirit to create and explore and not to destroy.