Idle US astronauts, Europeans to Mars

A few tidbits of recent news:
An AP story today talks about the plight of NASA's current crop of astronauts, some of whom may wait a decade before flying and some may never get a chance, with the current grounding of the space shuttle and its planned retirement in five years.
Also, a story on Mars Today reports that the European Space Agency says it will beat all others in sending humans to all planets of the inner solar system, and especially to Mars. And apparently they are talking seriously about searching for signs of life on Mars, something NASA has pretty much refused to do for the last 29 years. I'll have more to say about that soon.
More details of the ESA plan are here.