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Proponents point to the huge scientific advances on Earth our space program has brought. In the medical field alone, those have included everything from infrared ear thermometers to "cool" laser heart surgery.

Opponents say we can invest money more beneficially here on Earth. Many believe universal health care coverage should be our top spending priority. Others favor even more huge military budgets.

Some cost comparisons in dollars and lives:

• NASA's budget for this year is $16.2 billion. Human exploration of the moon and Mars over the next 40 years is estimated to cost about $150 billion.

• The budget for Iraq this year is $77 billion. We've spent more than $200 billion in Iraq since the war began in 2003.

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	Other views on space exploration and Iraq: "We remember Ferdinand and Isabella for Columbus, and not their power politics. Five hundred years from now, no one but historians will have heard of Iraq. But everyone will know who first journeyed to Mars." -Robert Zubrin, president of The Mars Society "The United States is a great power and a great country. Promoting space exploration and democracy in the Middle East are both priorities that we can afford" -Gary Schmitt, executive director, Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank

• Universal health care coverage provided for everyone who can't afford their own is estimated to cost as much as $230 billion annually.

• 17 astronauts have died in the space program since NASA launched it in 1958.

• 1,788 U.S. servicemen and women have died in the Iraq war. More than 13,000 have suffered serious wounds.

Conclusions:

Measured in U.S. dollars and lives, there is no way the war in Iraq can be justified. But the return on investment on the moon and Mars program, triggered from this historic "Birthplace of the Space Age," would continue to benefit all mankind.

Bush is right about space. He is wrong about Iraq.