Look Deeper (Score 2)

Come on, folks. This is NASA's bid to continue it's funding. Let's be serious here. We live in an era when American students rank 15th in the world in Math/Science/Knowledge in general. The adult population isn't much better. Most people will say "...why don't we solve the problems here on earth, first?!! " Politicians (thou great comptrollers of the Almighty Public Pursestrings) want votes and will gladly agree in order to get them. In a political environment like this, if you want to continue funding space research, you got to come up with things that can get you on the from page of the tabloids:

HEADLINE: NASA FINDS OCEAN ON MARS! PLANS TO EXPAND NEW HAWAII RESORT!

This is just a sad truth. For NASA to get to Mars, we need a space station and a moon base. This is going to take time, money, a lot of political schmozzing, and more time. Thus, they got to keep the fire stoked.