Where to Next?

Once every two years Mars and Earth are at the closest points in their orbit resulting in a 150 day one way trip. During those 150 days you will be exposed to radiation, cosmic rays and severe psychological deprivation not to mention atrophy of your muscles and bones.

Mars has a very weak magnetic field that offers no protection against cosmic rays and has huge dust storms which would block solar panels. On the plus side, the scientific and political acclaim would be huge but this doesn’t make it any more achievable. Financially it’s a black hole.

The moon has 1/6th of the Earth’s gravity meaning that you could construct and launch ships 5 times bigger than you could on Earth. Then there is the water on the polar caps and HE3 that could be used for fuel and the side permanently facing the sun for solar panels and it only takes three days to get there.

Bit off-topic but http://www.space.com/20605-nasa-budget-asteroid-lasso-2014.html for some reason I have a picture of astronauts standing on the moon with butterfly nets.

Could Helium-3 really solve Earth's energy problems?

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5908499/could-helium-3-really-solve-earths-energy-problems