The Russians already have proven the ability of a man to live 15 months in space. Mind you, that was in low earth orbit. Still, within Earth's magnetic field.

Going to Mars will require either invulnerable spacemen, or (b) adequate shielding. The current candidate for that is the water needed for the trip.

This is bullshit. Weightlessness is a problem because of atrophy and bone loss, yes. But *The Russians already did that. They sent up guys in a can in orbit for a LONG time* on Mir. Due to bungee cords, they came home fine. The most rational response to their work is to conclude that any manned missions to Mars should have artificial gravity. It's also bullshit because *we already know from plenty of Earth-based observations that radiation is bad!* and that once outside our planet's magnetic field the particles need to be shielded from.

Okay, put a man in a chamber and expose him to high levels of radiation for 18 months? No, you build a spaceship with shielding. But no one loves me. No one listens to me. The goal should be really and truly be boots on Mars, not political grandstanding about nothing.

I suspect you may be right, and it's just damn sad. What you're saying is, in other words, they want everything done for them.

Cloud backup services' ads crack me up. "Unlimited storage for $16.99 a month!" I have 4.5TB of storage on this machine. Uploading that at DSL speeds would take weeks.