I tend to agree that NASA when properly funded and run is better than a private company but it was mismanaged and left improperly funded for anything for years and years to the point it became irrelevant.

Yes, it's absurd that the important and perhaps critical exploration and colonisation of the solar system went from a civilisational (or at least national) enterprise, to a personal one, having to be essentially relaunched by one sole individual.

Space X is doing better at the moment but while I won't talk shit about some of the good stuff they do like starlink or other satellite launches which do have economic benefit. When Musk talks about the long term plans and the Mars missions it's all sorts of retarded. It's basically just populist marketing to a scientifically illiterate population.

Nonsense, likely coming from that common vision-less 'Economics' mentality that seems to afflict our times.

Imagine starting a permanent human settlement on Mars when we don't even have one on the moon? Moon first? It's way easier to go there why haven't they done it? (Because it's fucking hard).

Yes, moon first, why not? Mars is indeed much farther. But long term, Mars is better.

Now, of course that all of this is fucking hard. But that's not the actual issue, which is that we haven't really tried. In the sixties, we were doing more with less. We were sending men to the moon and even had supersonic passenger jets travelling at Mach 3, so high up you could observe the curvature of the earth (my father flew in it).

But after Von Braun's team died/retired, NASA was run by increasingly mediocre people. And, of course, stupid/malevolent(?) people ran both the USA and USSR, the new 'superpowers', which emerged from Europe's destruction, occupation, looting, and division, which were now supposedly in charge of civilisation, space programs, etc.

Getting stuff into earth orbit is pretty easy in comparison. People don't understand the distances involved in getting to even the moon which is like a hundred million times closer than Mars.

None of it is easy, yet. Getting stuff into earth orbit is actually very hard, having to fight the gravity of the whole earth, consuming a large part of the fuel. For the moon, it's most of it. And sure, the distances to anything beyond the moon are indeed scary. But most of the trip after reaching orbit is a matter of timing (planetary alignment), firing for a relatively short time, coasting, and then, possibly the hardest/most-dangerous part, landing.

The fact we did it in the 1960's is amazing and really it's a testament to the US space program, and the Russian space program that they even attempted that.

Right. :/

Either power could have gone to Mars by the 1980's of they wanted to but they didn't. It's hard. It's expensive. And your astronaut will probably die for any of the myriad of things that can go wrong.

The thing is that if we, the only known candle of consciousness and civilisation in the galaxy, don't do this, and soon, then earthlings will miss the opportunity to ever expand beyond this tiny planet. Most humans are driven by either greed or by dogmatic religious crap. Civilisation is not indestructible. De-civilisation does happen. So many civilised Graeco-Roman cities, with baths, libraries and theatres, have disappeared, their ruins walked over by completely ignorant superstitious goat herders who are guided by imaginary sky-dictators and think that the earth is flat. Currently much of the planet is populated by barbarous imbeciles, some primitive, others malevolent, many of them both. And these are the ones multiplying, while any civilised humans are dwindling.