[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

If folks want to tax churches that is fine with me. But why waste money on science fiction? The 20 years of space station experiments have found the human body cant survive without the Earth's gravity for more than a year. Even if humans could get to Mars its gravity is not strong enough humans could recuperate to survive the gauntlet of a return trip. Nothing in the Orion program is being designed to deal with this. Further if you reqd the details of the current program there aren't any plans to go to Mars at all (likely because the scientists already know an successful manned mission is likely impossible. Its a LUNAR program with quasi-realistic ambitions of asteroid exploration based on the recent success (sort of) of the Rosetta Mission in intercepting a comet based on astronomical projections.. However the former head of NASA recently said under currently approved budgets the program is doomed to failure from underfunding. He said, "with out more funding it will just end up being a waste of money." Bush II expanded funding for Mars missions and after the Recession these programs were scaled back. TLobbyists of various aerospace industry-government complex and firms pushed for a rehash of the original program and instead focus on the Moon because it was the most feasible and therefore politically more saleable. When the Recession deepened Barry O cut the funding even more saying about the Moon, "let me be blunt, we've already been there." The programs that survived were essentially pork projects for local industries and political favors. The Moon initially was only part of a multiphase plan to serve as a base for further exploration of Mars and the Asteroid belt. However several logistical issues doomed that program's potential for success including a lack of finding large enough water sources on the Moon in accessible regions to make potential fuels. The plans for developing a vehicle system were continually being bogged down by very fundamental problems. Worst of all, as with Mars itself, the Moon's gravity isn't sufficient to support human colonization which was a major component of the Mars plan to have lunar bases. There have been many very smart scientists legitimately working on plans to colonize the Moon and Mars but they've come upon some very legitimate issues that have no feasible resolution outside of science fiction. The space station experiments hoped to find ways through exercise and diet to survive long term human survival in low and no gravity and time and time again it has proven very dangerous. The human body simply needs Earth's specific gravity or our bodily systems start to fail and get out of sync.. then the current pork project version is just a pity party of science guy and manufacturers who are concerned about their job security. The space shuttle program was a,failure in economic terms, so much so that all of its missions launching satellites and even ferrying people and supplies from the space stations as a "space truck" were replaced by cheaper and older rocket based technologies for cost effective reasons. The Orion project is a motley collection of the few feasible plans left over from the Mars mission including a now more or less purposeless mission to the Moon. Its supposedly going to test and develop new delivery and vehicle systems and technologies and yet through 2033 there are no scheduled tech innovations. The major issues with the Mars vehicle system ARE NOT being tested or experimented on with Orion. So to be sure, after 20 more years nothing will be changed or gained technology wise and we would no closer to Mars than when we are right now.