'Have Space Suit, Will Travel' began this way...though there was already plenty of exploratory and commercial activity in Earth-Lunar space, so it was a very credible offering, in that story.

That's a myth. The plans still exist, but no one is interested in re-creating 60's technology. You just can't get some of that stuff anymore, and there are many things you really don't want to do now, the way Saturn did, even if you could.

I'll take it. In a heartbeat.

"And if Mars turns out not to be that interesting, we use it to explore other interesting places in the solar system."

"I thought we'd come to the conclusion that Earth-launched spacecraft were inefficient and ridiculously expensive..."

The SLS exists via the same logic, not because NASA said it needed it.

70 metric tons of...what?

You two miss my point. Actually, I don't have a problem with the so-called 'Ground Zero Mosque.' (which is indeed blocks from the site...I've already checked it via Google Earth, myself) They were within their legal rights. What I'm doing, is acknowledging that a great many other people, rightly or wrongly, do have…

And it makes it hard to define victory or success. No representative of all terrorists will ever be signing surrender papers in a railroad car, or on the deck of a battleship.

We still remember Pearl Harbor, even with not quite the same intensity. (still don't think I'd try to build a Japanese cultural center near it, though)

That second-page with Spider-Man looking down on the collapse site in horrified shock was a classic...

The Shuttle certainly does (oops, did), and people were warned not to touch or approach any tankage found from Columbia, for this reason. Hydrazine fumes are nasty stuff.

In addition to what Tzepish said, it's not likely that a random collection of Earth microbes (assuming they can survive and reproduce there at all) would happen to be the kind most suited to changing the Martian environment to something we might consider more favorable...

Just brought to my attention by a Facebook friend...

Sweet!

My birthday is the very same day as Howard Stern.

Was it good for you, too...?

"And the music! I want that as the soundtrack to my life."

Absolutely awesome!

Conversely, there may be a few people who are even older, but just can't prove it for lack of records...