Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969. That was a long time ago. Since then, no ground-breaking manned space expeditions have occurred. That’s not to say that nothing important has happened - the Voyager fly-by of Jupiter and the launching of Skylab and Hubble are both significant - but people just don’t seem to care about space anymore.

This is unfortunate, but perhaps there is a reason. For instance, the world is a dangerous place right now. Or, perhaps it’s because of the problems plaguing NASA. With the multi-million-dollar destruction of the Mars rover, and the tragedy of Columbia, people don’t expect NASA to succeed. Why should they? NASA hasn’t done anything especially important for a while. This may be because America no longer feels threatened by the Soviet Union, and therefore does not need to compete in the area of space. In fact, a large percentage of space discoveries have been made by independent astronomers.

Honestly, most people don’t care about rocks on Mars. What NASA needs now is a great expedition, something that will reignite our passion for space exploration. This cannot be accomplished without the development of new rocket technology. Even more ingenious would be the creation of a new type of space propulsion.

What if there were a human landing on Mars? That would certainly interest the world. This assignment would give the human race something greater to strive for. Putting a human on a long elusive sphere would propel the boundaries of human imagination. If we can land on Mars, what’s to stop us from going to Jupiter, or Saturn, or the very edge of the solar system? We could finally accomplish what science-fiction writers have only dreamed of. What if there’s more to the universe than we ever expected? Why should we stay on Earth while the whole of the cosmos is stretched before us, waiting for the human race to reach out and grab it?