I am thrilled that the earliest photos from the Mars Phoenix apparently show a large patch of ice directly under the craft. If this turns out to be so, it will mean that there is a lot more ice in the polar regions that we formerly suspected (and a good bit closer to the surface). There is either life or the evidence of previous life somewhere on that planet. I really hope I'm around when they find it.

I am not kidding. Larry Page and Sergey Brin are working with Richard Branson, to go to Mars. If you would like to go to Mars too, you can apply to do so at: http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html Or join Mission Control Network from earth to help develop the social system the Martian pioneers choose to adopt wink,wink, libertarians here is your chance ..... mailto:chance.....virgle@googlegroups.com Maybe now the government and big mercantilists can send all the successful members of the Page family to Mars instead of exiling us to Europe or Latin America?