I have a special Fox column up for the occasion, if there's anyone who hasn't gotten enough of me from my blog.

Aww, Rand, that was whimpy! I was really hoping your Fox article would have more in common with your History Repeats article....

Sorry, but they requested it, along with themes. It's probably not the time to rub salt in wounds in the mainstream press.

A great piece of work! I think it should have been your "history repeats" post, but all things take time, I know.

"They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

If we are to contnue to send men and women into space, and not robots (a la Stephanopoulos), then we need to remember that the endeavour will always be fundamentally a human enterprise for discovery of the Great Beyond.

It is the human spirit (I dare say, the Americvan spirit) that will ultimately, finally matter to carry our species into space to stay, rather than merely visit.

And it is the human spirits desire to actually GO THERE that will do it. The thing I keep muttering at the TV is that science isn't a sufficiently good reason to go, we go because we (you and I) actually want to be there. We'll do science once we get there if that's what interests you but the goal is to get people there permanently. Not 'do science'.

I'm not the least bit interested in funding a space program unless its goal is to get me and everyone else who wants to go into space at an affordable price.