A worth-repeating quote from Henry Spencer (a Canadian) over at sci.space.policy a few days ago:

>> Of course, I don’t expect that this fact
>>will make the politics of launching
>> a nuclear engine much easier.
>
> Oh it will happen. It’s just that manned space
> exploration is passing away from the
> democraciesthat are too narcissistic to care.

Nonsense. What we’ve seen so far (and what NASA is trying to return to) is just incidental dabbling. The days of real space exploration by free men still lie ahead, and in fact are getting pretty close. The cartoons are ending, and the curtain is about to go up on the main feature.

If all this sounds bizarre and fantastic, you need to stop thinking in terms of the socialist dream — spaceflight for the glory of the almighty state, the way NASA does it — and start considering the sort of space exploration that free people might do for their own reasons. It’s already possible to fly in space for any reason you think sufficient, if you’ve got the price of the ticket. It hasn’t worked out quite the way we thought — who would have *imagined* a world in which the only commercial spaceline requires you to learn Russian to get a seat assignment?!? — and it’s too damned expensive, but these nuisances will change soon, when real competition begins.

NASA will never, ever put men on Mars. Their target date for it is receding more than a year per year. But the first footprints on Mars almost certainly will be those of free men.