This is a difficult question to answer. Let me show you where the data are on the moon right now.
From the Canadian perspective, the answer is simple. We don't have such a large lunar community; we do have a large academic Martian community. From a Canadian perspective, my decision-making is easy in this area. If you were to ask me what we recommend, then I can easily let the moon go to the side because of that.
From a world perspective, it's a little different. In the Aitken Basin on the south pole of the moon, they feel there is a lake there now. It's frozen. It's subterranean a little bit. It's 965 kilometres across. They are also learning interesting things about the regolith on the moon, so there are technical and scientific reasons for going. If we go to the moon, it will allow us to test all our equipment, because it's only three days away. If we go to the moon first, we really improve the survival chances of the first crew going to Mars. There's a discussion and debate around that.
Now, let's go and look at Mars. What do we have on Mars? Mars has an atmosphere. Mars has a climate system. Mars used to have oceans on it. Those oceans have evaporated. It is possible--and it's a discussion and a debate, so I'm not giving you an answer--that if we go to Mars first, we will learn more about our own Earth.
I mentioned to you the optical instrument that we're flying in orbit now and that the UN would like us to fly more. We can fly that around Mars. We will learn the characteristics around the planet Mars and understand what's going on and use those data to improve what might happen to the Earth.
Mars has a magnetic field. The moon does not have a magnetic field of any significance. Therefore, studying what's called the electron outflow off the atmosphere of Mars is something that's very important to do because it's different than what it is.... There's a dynamic interchange across the atmosphere in space that we measure. It's different over the atmosphere of Mars compared to what it is on Earth. It's important for us to make these kinds of measurements so that we can understand our own planet better.
From a Canadian point of view, if I were able to convince the leadership to spend x millions of dollars, going to an asteroid is something that we could do, because the delta-v--that's the delta velocity--to get to an asteroid is small. For us to develop something that remotely lands on the surface of Mars is too expensive for the amount of money that the Canadian government would be willing to put up.
There are a whole series of different rationales about why you would do one relative to the other. Sometimes the moon would win. Internationally, sometimes the moon appears to be smarter and sometimes Mars appears to be smarter. From a Canadian perspective, Mars and the asteroids would be a smarter decision in order to drive innovation in this country as well.