NASA: We're sending humans to Mars
Sometime in the past fifty years NASA became paralyzed not by budget cuts, but by political in-fighting, fractured organizational structure and lots and lots of red tape. And then there is all that pork that goes around with the entrenched contractors. The tale of the last Mars program that NASA put together is a great example of this. They got handed a technically sound plan to get there in reasonable time with reasonable resources. Then every org-unit in NASA wanted to add their own part to stay relevant and it got so bloated both technically and financially that it had to be put to rest.<p>So unless they convince me that they managed to get their internal structural problems under control, I don't think they get anytime to Mars within this century. And certainly not before the private sector does.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program</a><p>p.s.: There is a free movie on YouTube telling the tale: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w</a>