Yesterday, at NASA's Capital Headquarters, President Bush unveiled a plan that, if successful - will have humans once again walking on the surface of the moon - and for the first time - the surface of Mars. This would be the first time a human has walked on the surface of another planet since Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin did it on July 20, 1969.

The comprehensive plan, which includes retiring the current fleet of Space Shuttles by 2010 and building more modern "spaceships" that could fly to the moon and back - carries a price tag of $12 billion - with another $800 billion needed to complete his plan - which would see humans walking on the surface of the Red Planet by 2020.

Personally, I think this plan, on paper, is a great idea. I believe that if we have the capability to explore outer space - we certainly should. Throughout our history, humans have always tried to explore and discover "the unknown" - and learning about the planets around us is a natural step in that process. For all we know, we might find some signs of past civilizations on Mars, ways to improve our own environment and ecosystem - or maybe even the one thing humans have always longed to find - current signs of life on another planet.

But while this plan is, as I said, a good plan on paper - it is completely impractical financially.

The first and most obvious reason is before we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to study another planet - we should use that money to deal with the problems on this one. From homelessness, to finding cures for debilitating diseases - to dealing with pollution - there is so much more to do here on Earth before we break the bank on Mars.

Another reason that President Bush's "star trek" is not practical is because there is no way we have the technology to not only send astronauts to Mars - but to house them there. It would take a team of astronauts nine months to get to Mars if we launched a spacecraft towards the Red Planet when it was closest to Earth. There is no way we could build a spacecraft that not only has enough fuel to make that journey - but has the ability to land on Mars and then take off again and return to Earth. Besides that, how do we know that if they do make it to Mars - that our current spacesuits can protect our astronauts from the Martian atmosphere? There are times temperatures on Mars reach two hundred degrees below zero - so how could a human survive?

I am all for boldly going where no one has gone before, but I think that before we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to send a team of astronauts on a doomsday mission - I think we first need to discover and explore the life on Earth - and figure out ways to make this planet a better place to live - before we try and move on to other ones.