Our planetary neighbour, Mars, has featured prominently in the headlines these past few weeks. A number of probes have landed there, with varying degrees of success, and more are on the way. Now it seems US President George Bush wants to send people to Mars.

He is also keen to set up a permanent base on the Moon. Seems like a blast from the past, and the age of space exploration back in the 1960s. That seemed to be about the last time anyone was serious about establishing a human presence in space.

After the final Apollo Moon missions of the early 1970s, little was really said or done to bring this about. Now it seems outer space is back on the agenda. As I see it, this is something we need to do as a people. We need to start setting ourselves ambitious goals. Things that may bring some kind of unity to humankind.

Of course that’s highly ideal thinking, and is far easier said than done. What at this stage is our long term outlook though? The rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer? Equality for some, but not everyone else? What real goals do we have other than feathering the nest and making life (for a few of us) more comfortable?

I’m not preaching here, just thinking out loud.

It is the real intent of the US President that I am really wondering about though. Why has space colonisation and exploration suddenly come back into the spotlight? Does Mr Bush want history to show him as a foresightful leader who took humanity into space?

Did he recently see the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time, to have it suddenly dawn on him that we are a little behind the programme, so to speak? We can’t stop over at the orbiting Hilton Hotel on route to one of the Moon bases, because there is NO orbiting hotel. Come to that there are no Moon bases either. Well, we better do something about that, hadn’t we?

Or is it some sort of smoke screen? A way of diverting attention away from more Earthly matters that may damage his prospects of re-election? Some experts are cynical and think the level of funding Bush has pledged to finance these plans falls drastically short of what is required.

While the prospect of being able to travel to bases on the Moon and beyond is exciting, it will interesting to see what actually eventuates. And there is of course the extremely minor matter of putting our own house in order (how long is the list now?) before we attempt to set the Martians straight.

Tsk, tsk… their environmental policies are shocking. What have done to their planet’s atmosphere and water supply? Just as well we are on the way to sort things out…