Mars far off

While the whole of the world is watching that new brightly shining dot in the sky called Mars, the people the world leaves in charge of missions to such places is struggling to figure out the stuff right close to home, never mind light years away. '"The short answer is that we have no political directive to go to Mars," NASA spokesman John Ira Petty said Tuesday, shortly after the release of a report on the Columbia shuttle disaster. That report detailed NASA's problems, from poor communication within the agency to the lack of a shared national vision for human space flight. "We're developing the capability to do that if we get the directive, but Washington hasn't told us to go to Mars," said Petty.'