Jeff Greason apparently made a very politically incorrect (i.e., correct) speech to a very prestigious audience last week:

...this future is not inevitable -- and it will not happen without massive private investment and the prospect of profit. Government must move from the center of the stage to play a supporting role. If government actions discourage investment, forbid risk-taking, and pile up red tape, we can look forward to a future very much like the present.

I was born after the last flight of Gemini, and I have lived long enough for my son to ask me "Dad, did they really used to fly to the Moon when you were a boy?" The choices we make in this decade will determine whether my grandchildren have to ask the same question.

OT:

Here is an article about Moscow and Washington competing for military facilities in the southern former Soviet republics; the 'Stans.

http://www.muslimuzbekistan.com/eng/ennews/2003/12/ennews18122003.html

I tell you this to give you an excuse to make a pun about The Great Russian and American Base Race.

I thought that all we needed to do was to tell the Russians in Uzbekistan "All your base are belong to us."

I ended up in a mind-boggling debate a few months back about the existence of Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest and whether NASA really put someone on the Moon. We need to get to the Moon so that we'll have better things to debate than whether NASA got there or not.