We need humans in space - off the surface of our planet/target. We don't necessarily need to land on a planet for other than exploration. Mars One's greatest value may be building the infrastructure and skills to travel beyond LEO. The resources of the system are in the asteroids, which are not stuck at the bottom of deep gravity wells (which makes it expensive to get up and down). It would change the incentives if we start going out and grabbing the NEOs for a profit rather than just having to duck or punt.

Thanks for the very interesting hangout. I have one or two comments. 1) What was the bleeping sound which periodical blotted out words whenever Mat Kaplan spoke (eg at 19:49? 2) The JEO (during its 9-month Europa orbit phase) promised, amongst other things, laser altimetry, gravity mapping, radar sounding, and 10 m/pixel imaging covering about 80% of the Europan surface (plus 1 m/pixel for selected areas). In contrast, the Europa Clipper mission as outlined at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/details.php?id=6002 offers 32 flybys of Europa during its primary mission, ranging from 2700 km to 25 km, which (to be frank) would seem like a re-run (albeit lengthier) of the Galileo-Europa phase of the Galileo mission, with the addition of an ice penetrating radar, a more modern camera and computer system, and a functioning high-gain antenna. But no laser altimetry, and (presumably) limited if any gravity field or tidal data. While that may be better than nothing, would that truly be a satisfactory substitute for the JEO? Which raises the question of just how many of the goals of the JEO the EC will be able to accomplish? 3) @43:22 Casey: "…it has that ocean of salty water…" Is the existence of a sub-surface ocean, salty or otherwise, under Europa's ice as yet an established FACT or (much like the existence of dark matter) still only a well-founded but yet-to-be-confirmed suspicion? My understanding was that establishing that ocean's existence AS a fact through multiple lines of evidence (gravity, tidal effects,.radar sounding, etc) was one of the goals of a JEO. Am I mistaken? 4) @43:21 Casey: "ever since [the] Gaileo [mission] suggested there was liquid water on Europa." You youngsters need to brush up on your ancient space history! A liquid water ocean beneath Europa's ice has been suspected by some ever since the days of Voyager, never mind Galileo! Galileo simply provided the most clinching evidence thus far in its favour.

A few additional comments: 5) @44:16 Casey: "And then you'll have another [MSR] mission come after that…" The MSR (at least as presented in the decadal report) would require THREE separate missions, not two. 6) @44:35 Casey: "One of the reasons we need this funding back now [is] to do this really important thing…" Actually, if you think about it. should the Mars One project actually go ahead then if it DOES succeed in landing people on Mars at some point in the 2020s (be that 2023 or later), then the MSR would immediately become obsolete. For why would NASA spend maybe $10 billion on three separate missions to bring back a few grams of pebbles and powdered rock back to Earth when all it has to do is land a couple of tons of laboratory equipment at the Mars One site and then ask/hire/plead with the Mars One team to do a little field geology and then analyze the results?. Granted Mars One may not necessarily land on the most geologically interesting Mars terrain, but right now obtaining an absolute date for a single rock from a known location and geolgical context anywhere on Mars would itself be a major milestone. 7) @50:36 Emily: ."…a reality TV show around…" That would seem to require a film crew to go to Mars as well as the actors. The alternative would be to have the actors do the filming etc themselves as well as the acting, which may or may not produce watchable results. 8) @53:11 Emily: "..which we haven't discovered yet…" Just how does one preserve a thing not yet been discovered, and therefore a thing we have no idea what it is like so that we can devise ways OF preserving it)? Or to turn the issue around just how soon will we know for certain that Mars life does NOT exist so that human beings can thereafter be allowed to visit the Red Planet? Human patience has its limits. :-)