President Obama’s news conference on the sequester and funding cuts (Transcript)

Here is a running transcript of President Obama’s news conference on the sequestration cuts delivered on March 1, 2013. Remarks are being updated as they unfold:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning, everybody.

As you know, I just met with the leaders of both parties to discuss a way forward in light of the severe budget cuts that start to take effect today. I told them these cuts will hurt our economy. They’ll cost us jobs. And to set it right, both sides need to be willing to compromise.

You know, the good news is the American people are strong and they’re resilient. They fought hard to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and we will get through this as well. Even with these cuts in place, folks all across this country will work hard to make sure that we keep the recovery going.

OBAMA: But Washington sure isn’t making it easy. At a time when our businesses have finally begun to get some traction, hiring new workers, bringing jobs back to America, we shouldn’t be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that businesses depend on and workers depend on like education and research and infrastructure and defense.

It’s unnecessary, and at a time when too many Americans are still looking for work it’s inexcusable.

Now, what’s important to understand is that not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away. The pain, though, will be real. Beginning this week, many middle class families will have their lives disrupted in significant ways. Businesses that work with the military, like the Virginia shipbuilder that I visited on Tuesday may have to lay folks off. Communities near military bases will take a serious blow.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans who serve their country -- Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, civilians who work at the Pentagon -- all will suffer significant pay cuts and furloughs.

All of this will cause a ripple effect throughout our economy. Layoffs and pay cuts means that people have less money in their pockets, and that means that they have less money to spend at local businesses. That means lower profits, that means fewer hires.

The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage to our economy, a slow grind that will intensify with each passing day. So economists are estimating that as a consequence of the sequester that we could see growth cut by over one half of 1 percent. It will cost about 750,000 jobs at a time when we should be growing jobs more quickly.

So every time that we get a piece of economic news over the next month, next two months, next six months, as long as the sequester’s in place we’ll know that that economic news could have been better if Congress had not failed to act.

OBAMA: And let’s be clear: None of this is necessary. It’s happening because a choice that Republicans in Congress have made. They’ve allowed these cuts to happen because they refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit.

As recently as yesterday, they decided to protect special- interest tax breaks for the well-off and the well-connected, and they think that that’s apparently more important than protecting our military or middle-class families from the pain of these cuts.

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US manufacturing rises for 3rd straight month: ISM

WASHINGTON, March 1, 2013 (AFP) - US manufacturing activity expanded in February for the third month in a row, hitting the highest level since 2011, according to the ISM survey of purchasing managers released Friday.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing sector index rose to 54.2 from 53.1 in January, boosted by a 4.5 percent surge in new orders.

Manufacturing appeared to be pulling out of a holding pattern in the second half of 2012, when the index hovered around the 50 break-even line between growth and contraction.

The index, based on a nationwide survey of manufacturing purchasing executives, showed across-the-board gains for the second straight month.

The February reading was the highest since June 2011 and unexpectedly strong.

Most analysts estimated the index would fall to 52.4.

Gains were seen in all five sub-indexes: new orders, production, employment, supplier deliveries and inventories.

Of the 18 manufacturing industries surveyed, 15 reported growth, compared with 13 in January.

Executives polled in the survey generally appeared upbeat about demand, although some indicated worry about the government's drastic "sequester" spending cuts that were to begin Friday.

"Overall business is good," said an executive in the food, beverage and tobacco products industry.

A furniture executive said: "Business seems to be on an uptick. The normal seasonal downturn for us has been much shorter and not as severe as in the past four years."

But an executive in computers and electronics pointed to government cuts in defense spending as a problem for his industry, one of the three reporting a contraction in February.

- AFP/ch

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Firing at Indian posts along LoC

JAMMU: Indian posts along the Line of Control in Mendhar belt of Poonch district came under firing, a BSF official said today.

However, there was no report of any causality.

There was a firing from across the border on Indian posts in Gagdiayal forward area along LoC last night, the official said.

There was small arms and rocket firing, he said adding there was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing.

The area is manned by troops of 112 battalion of BSF and 40 Rashtruya Rifles.

It was not known whether the firing came from Pakistani troops or militants.

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Stinkbug Threat Has Farmers Worried

Part of our weekly "In Focus" series—stepping back, looking closer.

Maryland farmer Nathan Milburn recalls his first encounter.

It was before dawn one morning in summer 2010, and he was at a gas station near his farm, fueling up for the day. Glancing at the light above the pump, something caught his eye.

"Thousands of something," Milburn remembers.

Though he'd never actually seen a brown marmorated stinkbug, Milburn knew exactly what he was looking at. He'd heard the stories.

This was a swarm of them—the invasive bugs from Asia that had been devouring local crops.

"My heart sank to my stomach," Milburn says.

Nearly three years later, the Asian stinkbug, commonly called the brown marmorated stinkbug, has become a serious threat to many mid-Atlantic farmers' livelihoods.

The bugs have also become a nuisance to many Americans who simply have warm homes—favored retreats of the bugs during cold months, when they go into a dormant state known as overwintering.

The worst summer for the bugs so far in the U.S. was 2010, but 2013 could be shaping up to be another bad year. Scientists estimate that 60 percent more stinkbugs are hunkered down indoors and in the natural landscape now than they were at this time last year in the mid-Atlantic region.

Once temperatures begin to rise, they'll head outside in search of mates and food. This is what farmers are dreading, as the Asian stinkbug is notorious for gorging on more than a half dozen North American crops, from peaches to peppers.

Intruder Alert

The first stinkbugs probably arrived in the U.S. by hitching a ride with a shipment of imported products from Asia in the late 1990s. Not long after that, they were spotted in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Since then, they've been identified in 39 other states. Effective monitoring tools are being developed to help researchers detect regional patterns.

There are two main reasons to fear this invader, whose popular name comes from the pungent odor it releases when squashed. It can be distinguished from the native stinkbug by white stripes on its antennae and a mottled appearance on its abdomen. (The native stinkbug can also cause damage but its population number is too low for it to have a significant impact.)

For one thing, Asian stinkbugs have an insatiable appetite for fruits and vegetables, latching onto them with a needlelike probe before breaking down their flesh and sucking out juice until all that's left is a mangled mess.

Peaches, apples, peppers, soybeans, tomatoes, and grapes are among their favorite crops, said Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist leading a USDA-funded team dedicated to stinkbug management. She adds that in 2010, the insects caused $37 million in damage just to apple crops in the mid-Atlantic region.

Another fear factor: Although the stinkbug has some natural predators in the U.S., those predators can't keep up with the size of the stinkbug population, giving it the almost completely unchecked freedom to eat, reproduce, and flourish.

Almost completely unchecked. Leskey and her team have found that stinkbugs are attracted to blue, black, and white light, and to certain pheromones. Pheromone lures have been used with some success in stinkbug traps, but the method hasn't yet been evaluated for catching the bugs in large numbers.

So Milburn—who is on the stakeholders' advisory panel of Leskey's USDA-funded team—and other farmers have had to resort to using some chemical agents to protect against stinkbug sabotage.

It's a solution that Milburn isn't happy about. "We have to be careful—this is people's food. My family eats our apples, too," he says. "We have to engage and defeat with an environmentally safe and economically feasible solution."

Damage Control

Research Entomologist Kim Hoelmer agrees but knows that foregoing pesticides in the face of the stinkbug threat is easier said than done.

Hoelmer works on the USDA stinkbug management team's biological control program. For the past eight years, he's been monitoring the spread of the brown marmorated stinkbug with an eye toward containing it.

"We first looked to see if native natural enemies were going to provide sufficient levels of control," he says. "Once we decided that wasn't going to happen, we began to evaluate Asian natural enemies to help out."

Enter Trissolcus, a tiny, parasitic wasp from Asia that thrives on destroying brown marmorated stinkbugs and in its natural habitat has kept them from becoming the extreme pests they are in the U.S.

When a female wasp happens upon a cluster of stinkbug eggs, she will lay her own eggs inside them. As the larval wasp develops, it feeds on its host—the stinkbug egg—until there's nothing left. Most insects have natural enemies that prey upon or parasitize them in this way, said Hoelmer, calling it "part of the balance of nature."

In a quarantine lab in Newark, Delaware, Hoelmer has been evaluating the pros and cons of allowing Trissolcus out into the open in the U.S. It's certainly a cost-effective approach.

"Once introduced, the wasps will spread and reproduce all by themselves without the need to continually reintroduce them," he says.

And these wasps will not hurt humans. "Entomologists already know from extensive research worldwide that Trissolcus wasps only attack and develop in stinkbug eggs," Hoelmer says. "There is no possibility of them biting or stinging animals or humans or feeding on plants or otherwise becoming a pest themselves."

But there is a potential downside: the chance the wasp could go after one or more of North America's native stinkbugs and other insects.

"We do not want to cause harm to nontarget species," Hoelmer says. "That's why the host range of the Asian Trissolcus is being studied in the Newark laboratory before a request is made to release it."

Ultimately, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will decide whether or not to introduce the wasp. If it does, the new natural enemy could be let loose as early as next year.

Do you have stinkbugs in your area? Have they invaded your home this winter? Or your garden last summer? How do you combat them? Share your sightings and stories in the comments.

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Obama, Congress Fail to Avert Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.

Obama met for just over an hour at the White House Friday with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold.

Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect on Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.

The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- remains whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.

The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through closure of tax loopholes and elimination of some deductions. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs.

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Harry Reid says it’s still ‘not too late’ to avert sequester

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid said Thursday that it is still “not too late” to avert potentially devastating budget cuts due to start taking effect Friday, and he blasted a Republican plan that he said would embrace the cuts without taking responsibility for them.

In a floor speech a day ahead of a White House meeting between President Obama and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, Reid (D-Nev.) accused Republicans of being “completely inflexible” by refusing to countenance revenue increases, including cutting subsidies and closing tax loopholes, as part of a solution to avoid steep automatic spending cuts known the sequester.

In the meeting planned for Friday, Obama is expected to push Republican congressional leaders to accept higher tax revenue to avoid the cuts, and the Republicans are expected to reply that they already compromised at the beginning of the year when they agreed to more than $600 billion in new taxes, according to officials in both camps.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilian employees of the Defense Department will be furloughed in coming weeks and months,” Reid said in his floor speech. “Families and businesses across this country are also bracing for the pain of deep cuts to programs that keep our food safe, our water clean and our borders secure.”

He added: “But it’s not too late to avert these damaging cuts.” He touted a “balanced” Democratic plan that he said would “reduce the deficit by making smart spending cuts,” would “close wasteful tax loopholes” and “stop wasteful subsidies to farmers.” The plan also “would ask the wealthiest among us — those making millions each year — to pay just a little more to help reduce the deficit,” he said.

The Senate plans to vote Thursday afternoon on replacing the sequester in part with tax increases on millionaires. The Democratic bill is expected to fail, as is a GOP alternative that would give the White House more flexibility to decide where the cuts would fall.

In its latest e-mail to supporters, Organizing for Action, a nonprofit set up to promote Obama’s second-term agenda, accused the Republicans of “refusing to compromise.” The e-mail from Jim Messina, the group’s chairman and former Obama campaign manager, said: “If congressional Republicans don’t act by tomorrow, we’re going to be hit by a series of devastating, automatic budget cuts.... It’s a sledgehammer to the budget, our economy, and millions of Americans across the country — and the most frustrating part? It doesn’t have to happen.”

Dire warnings from Democrats and the White House notwithstanding, the impact of the cuts remains a subject of considerable dispute.

Reid said the plan advanced by Senate Republicans would not replace “the pain of the sequester with something smarter and more reasonable,” but would “embrace these devastating cuts, while abandoning any of the responsibility that goes along with them.” He said the GOP plan really amounts to “a punt.”

“Republicans should give Congress true flexibility — flexibility to cut wasteful subsidies, flexibility to close unnecessary tax loopholes and flexibility to ask the richest of the rich to contribute a little more,” the Senate Democratic leader said. “Instead, they’re completely inflexible — insisting we risk hundreds of thousands of American jobs, as well as programs that strengthen families and small businesses across this nation. But that should come as no surprise. As usual, Republicans have put the demands of special interests over the needs of middle-class Americans.”

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Pope leaves Vatican on historic final day

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI left the Vatican on Thursday for the last time as pontiff before he steps down as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, becoming the first pope to resign in 700 years.

Benedict boarded a white helicopter emblazoned with the Vatican flag for the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome, flying over the Vatican for the last time as pope.

As he took leave of his closest aides in an emotional parting ceremony in the Vatican, staff lined the route of his motorcade and applauded.

The bells of St Peter's Basilica rang out as the helicopter took off from the Vatican's helipad.

"Thank you for your love and support," the pope said in a final tweet sent from his @pontifex Twitter account just before taking off.

"May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."

The Twitter account will now be suspended until a new pope is elected in a conclave next month.

The 85-year-old, who has said he can no longer carry on, will then bid one last goodbye to residents of Castel Gandolfo before retiring out of the public eye forever to a life of prayer.

At 1900 GMT, Benedict will no longer be pope.

The Swiss Guards -- a military corps that has protected the papacy since the 15th century and is best known for its brightly-coloured uniforms -- will then leave their posts and return to Rome.

Following tradition, staff in the Vatican will meanwhile apply seals to the doors of the papal apartments and the lift that leads up to them -- to be broken only once a new pope has been elected.

Benedict is only the second pope to resign in the Church's 2,000-year history and in his final hours as pope on Thursday he took the unprecedented step of pledging allegiance to his successor.

"Among you there is also the future pope to whom I promise my unconditional obedience and reverence," the pope said as he bade farewell to cardinals in the Vatican's ornate Clementine Hall.

"Let the Lord reveal the one he has chosen," said the pope, wearing an ermine-lined red stole over his white cassock as cardinals doffed their berettas and lined up to kiss the papal ring.

Benedict will remove the personalised signet ring -- known as the "Fisherman's Ring" -- before he leaves office and it will be destroyed, a tradition to ensure the papal seal is not misused.

"We have experienced, with faith, beautiful moments of radiant light together, as well as times with a few clouds in the sky," Benedict told the cardinals, reprising his remarks to a crowd of 150,000 faithful in St Peter's Square on Wednesday.

"Let us remain united, dear brothers," he said, in the final moments of an eight-year pontificate often overshadowed by infighting at the Vatican and divisions between reformers and traditionalists in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican has said pope will live in Castel Gandolfo for the next two months before taking up permanent residence inside a former convent on a hilltop in the Vatican grounds overlooking Rome.

The German pope stunned the globe when he announced on February 11 his decision to step down, saying he no longer had the "strength of mind and body" required by a fast-changing world.

The news has captured massive media attention, with the Vatican saying that 3,641 journalists from 61 countries will cover the upcoming conclave -- on top of the regular Vatican press corps.

The ex-pontiff will formally carry the new title of "Roman Pontiff Emeritus" or "pope emeritus" for short, although he will still be addressed as "Your Holiness Benedict XVI".

The only other pope who resigned by choice was Celestine V, a humble hermit who stepped down in 1294 after just a few months in office out of disgust with Vatican corruption and intrigue.

Once Benedict takes up residence inside the Vatican, the Church will be in the unprecedented situation of having a pope and his predecessor living within a stone's throw of each other.

Commenting on the new arrangement, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said that Benedict "has no intention of interfering in the positions, decisions or activities of his successor".

Benedict has said he will live "hidden from the world" but the Vatican indicated he could provide "spiritual guidance" to the next pope.

Vatican analysts have suggested his sudden exit could set a precedent for ageing popes in the future, and many ordinary Catholics say a more youthful, pastoral figure could breathe new life into a Church struggling on many levels.

From Catholic reformers calling for women clergy and for an end to priestly celibacy, to growing secularism in the West and ongoing scandals over sexual abuses by paedophile priests going back decades, the next pope will have a tough agenda.

Meanwhile the suspense was building up in Castel Gandolfo -- a tiny mediaeval hilltop town which has hosted visiting popes for centuries and where many locals work at the sprawling papal residence.

"It's a very emotional day," said Patrizia Gasperini, 40, who works in a gift shop next to the imposing wooden doors Swiss Guards will shut at 1900 to signal the end of Benedict's papacy.

Gasperini, who named her eight-year-old daughter Benedetta in his honour, said: "We've been privileged to see a different, more humane side to him over the years, and grown to love him."

-AFP/ac

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Manik Sarkar, son of tailor, to be Tripura chief minister again

AGARTALA: Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, set to assume office for a fourth time after leading the Left to a huge electoral win, is the son of a tailor who still washes his own clothes.

An unassuming man, the 64-year-old got down to work no soon than he was declared the winner from Dhanpur constituency. He met CPM leaders and activists at Sonamura, 60km from here.

On Thursday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) bagged 49 of the 60 seats while its ally Communist Party of India won one seat. The Congress finished with only 10 seats.

It was the best result for the Left since 1978 when the legendary Nripen Chakraborty-led CPM swept 56 seats. This time, Sarkar helped the Left Front increase its 2008 tally by one seat.

Undoubtedly, the "poorest" chief minister in India, Sarkar, according to documents filed with the Election Commission, has Rs.10,800 in cash.

In line with CPM rules, Sarkar gives away his salary to the party, which pays him Rs 5,000 a month.

He is probably India's only chief minister who does not own a home, car or bank balance worth mentioning.

He does not even have a mobile phone and has never used the red beacon on his official car.

Sarkar's wife Panchali Bhattacharjee, 62, who retired as a government employee in 2010, has Rs 22,015 in cash and Rs.24,52,395 as savings. The couple has no children.

She said her husband still washed his clothes every morning.

"My wife's pension can sustain us. My expenses are a small pot of snuff and a cigarette a day," Sarkar said.

After the death of his mother in 2009, Sarkar inherited a small house worth Rs.200,000 in Agartala. He donated it to his younger sister.

Sarkar's father Amulya was a tailor and mother Anjali was an employee of the state health department.

Sarkar joined politics in 1967 and was elected secretary of the CPM's Tripura unit in 1993.

A bachelor of commerce from Calcutta University, Sarkar was first elected to the Tripura assembly in a 1980 bypoll and again in 1983.

He is the second in the northeast to be the chief minister for 15 years or more after Gegong Apang of the Congress who ruled Arunachal Pradesh for 24 years over two periods (1980-99 and 2003-07).

On Thursday, Sarkar defeated his Congress rival Shah Alam by 6,017 votes. In 2008, Sarkar's winning margin was 2,918.

"This is a verdict in favour of development, peace and stability besides good governance," Sarkar told reporters.

According to a CPI-M leader, Left Front leaders will meet here Friday and decide when to form a new government.

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Mars Missions: A Time Line of Success and Failure

Humans have been thinking about visiting Mars—or being visited by Martians—for more than a century. On Wednesday, a group funded by businessman Dennis Tito announced its intention to launch a manned flyby mission to Mars in 2018.

Our awareness of Mars dates back millennia, while our modern picture of the red planet emerged in the 1870s, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to see networks of channels (canali) through his telescope. The Italian word, mistranslated into English as "canals," helped inspire American astronomer Percival Lowell to observe Mars for decades and create detailed maps of a Martian canal system.

Lowell's work popularized the idea of Mars as a dry and dying world with canals constructed by an advanced civilization carrying life-giving water from the polar ice caps. (Related: The Psychology of Deep Space Travel.)

This romantic vision helped spur novels like War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. But in the 20th century, Wells's fantastic sci-fi world of heat-ray-wielding Martian invaders gave way to scientific research on how humans might actually visit the red planet.

German rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun was the first to develop a practical plan for a Martian journey. In the early 1950s, while working for the U.S. government, he proposed a massive expedition involving ten 4000-ton spaceships and 70 crew members.

The envisioned Mars trip reflected von Braun's grand dream of winged shuttle rocket fleets, a giant orbiting space station, and a moon base. Beginning in 1952, Collier's magazine published eight articles on this futuristic goal, hiring artists to bring von Braun's plans to life. ("Meet One of Mars Rover Curiosity's Earthbound Twins.")

Working with von Braun, Walt Disney produced a series of television specials dramatizing human trips to orbit, the moon, and finally Mars. Cereal manufacturers introduced toy models of this proposed Martian space fleet.

More than half a century on, the dream that compelled so many Americans still seems, to many, to be just that: a dream.

So why hasn't Martian travel happened yet?

Technology and cost have been the two big sticking points.

Von Braun's plan, for its part, overlooked many barriers—prolonged effects of weightlessness, radiation from solar flares—and was grounded in a poor understanding of Mars, whose thin atmosphere makes it a far more hostile place than he knew.

The costs involved to solve such problems are immense, helping prevent Mars travel so far. But Von Braun's proposals have given rise to more than a thousand schemes from governments, companies, and private groups to reach the red planet. The NASA publication Humans to Mars, written by David S.F. Portree, chronicles these efforts. Here are highlights:

1962: Project EMPIRE. A series of studies by NASA and outside aerospace contractors, Project EMPIRE proposed a Mars flyby using the same 500-day orbit as the planned 2018 Inspiration Mars trip. The flyby was designed to allow astronauts to gain more information about the planet and return to Earth. Later plans envisioned an enormous rocket called Nova—larger than the Saturn V moon rocket—to boost five 450-foot-long (137-meter-long) ships to orbit, carrying a total of 15 crew members to Mars for an extended stay. This and other early plans assumed large manned ships would slow down by skimming off the surface of a thick Martian atmosphere, saving huge amounts of fuel.

1964: Mariner 4. This unmanned probe, the first to reach Mars, revealed a planet with a far thinner atmosphere and higher radiation levels than expected. Lowell's canals and an ancient Martian civilization were missing. Mariner revealed that human travel to Mars would be hazardous and that automated probes might perform many observations more cheaply.

1966: JAG. This plan for a 1976 mission proposed using a nuclear-powered rocket carrying four humans on a flyby around Mars. On approach, an automated probe would descend to the planet's surface, collect soil samples, then quickly rocket up to a manned ship zooming overhead. The crew would return to Earth after a 667-day voyage. Soaring Vietnam War costs killed the project, although the automated lander eventually developed into the unmanned Viking missions that successfully touched down on Mars in 1976.

1969: Post-Apollo. Hoping to exploit the first moon landing, NASA proposed an ambitious follow-on program, pitched in part by Wernher von Braun and echoing his original vision: a winged shuttle, a space station, and a large human expedition to Mars. Faced with Vietnam War costs and waning public interest in space following the moon landing, the plan was rejected, though then President Richard Nixon approved development of the space shuttle. In the following decades, unmanned craft successfully visited Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

1989: Space Exploration Initiative. Developed during the first Bush Administration, the plan provided a framework to complete the space station, set up a lunar outpost, and mount a Mars expedition around 2010. Cost estimates soared to over $500 billion, dooming the effort.

2004: Vision for Space Exploration. This plan, hatched during the second Bush Administration, called for using technology developed for the Apollo and shuttle programs to construct a new crew vehicle, booster rocket, and heavy-lift rocket to return to the moon as early as 2015. New technologies and approaches tested on the moon, the thinking went, would lead to human trips to Mars around 2030. Most of the program was canceled for cost reasons.

2012: Red Dragon. Developed by Elon Musk's Space Exploration company, this plan proposes to send an automated "Dragon" vehicle to land on Mars in 2018, paving the way for an eventual human landing.

2013: Inspiration Mars. Proposed by Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, the idea is to seize on an unusual 2018 planetary alignment to send a male and female astronaut on a 500-day flyby around Mars. The National Geographic Society is exploring the idea of partnering with Tito's group.

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Benedict Departs Vatican for the Last Time as Pope

Pope Benedict XVI bade his final farewell to the faithful today, lifting off from the Vatican in a white helicopter as the first pope to resign in six centuries.

Just before 5 p.m. local time, Benedict, 85, walked out of the Vatican for the last time as pope, waving to a cheering crowd in the Courtyard of San Damaso as he entered a black Mercedes for the short drive to a nearby heliport.

In a tweet sent from Benedict XVI ?@Pontifex as his motorcade rolled to the heliport, Benedict said, "Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."

READ MORE: Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address

With church bells ringing across Rome, he then embarked on the 15-minute flight to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence just south of the city and his home for the coming months when he'll be recognized by the church as His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus.

When Benedict landed in the gardens at Castel Gandolfo, he was greeted by a group of dignitaries, including the governor of the Vatican City state Giovanni Bertello, two bishops, the director of the pontifical villas, and the mayor and parish priest. Off the helicopter and back into a car, Benedict headed to the palace.

In the plaza at Castel Gandolfo, a crowd of supporters, many waving flags or banners, some peering out of windows, gathered to welcome Benedict. When Benedict finally appeared on the balcony, the crowd erupted in applause.

"Thank you for your friendship, your affection," Benedict told them.

Benedict said he was "just a pilgrim starting the last lap of his earthly journey."

After his brief address to the crowd, Benedict waved one last time and walked back into the palace as the sun set around the square.

9 Men Who Could Replace Pope Benedict XVI

In his final remarks earlier in the day to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor.

Benedict, in a morning meeting at the Vatican, urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.

Benedict spent a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.

His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace. Despite the historical nature of Benedict's resignation, not all cardinals attended the event.

Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.

Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service

For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure is bittersweet. Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.

"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."

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