Over at Salon Joe Conason seems to think that Bush's announcement concerning sending people is all about oil.

When President Bush inspires us onward and upward to Mars this week, his political calculations may be more earthly. Expanding space exploration is a wonderful aspiration for America and humanity -- and also quite promising for the Houston economy, the national aerospace industry, and one company in particular that has long pondered exploration of the red planet: Halliburton.

Ok, as no one knows if life ever even existed on Mars, it's kind of interesting that anyone would even contemplate drilling for oil there in the first place. For those of you that don't know, oil is created by the decay of dead plants and animals. It's organic. If life doesn't exist, it doesn't exist.

His two sources discuss drilling in space. One mentions oil, but concerning use of the technology being developed for terrestrial uses as well as their use off the planet. The other one mentions Halliburton, but it was discussing how NASA wants to use technology to drill for water and look for the possiblity of microscopic life. Doesn't look like any discussion of how the company could get rich off of drilling. Nor does any of his sources suggest a determination of the company to drill on the moon. To some people everything is a conspiracy.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a lot more on this.