While I am heartily envious of all the people who get to play with robotic vehicles on different planets and get paid for it as well
:lol: Who isn't?!
Getting to Mars before 2020 is certainly possible, if done with primitive means, or if the US decided to put more money on space exploration than on it's military (which IMO would be a good thing). The question is if such an expedition would have much scientific value. Sure, we'd set our foot on another planet, and that's really cool, but if we really want to continiue on as a space-faring race then we'd be better off racing to the moon and back, improving our engines (or whatever we'll use) until they're good enough to travel at serious speeds. Then we could start aiming for colonization of the rest of the solar system.
However, if some dude named Cochrane invents a "warp engine" shortly after WWIII, then things might change. :-D
