Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Boldly Going

Continuing on from yesterday's post, I don't mean to insinuate that the things we've done in space since Apollo are insignificant; they're not. They're just boring, is all. I believe Americans are explorers by nature. It's encoded into our cultural DNA, what with the whole Lewis & Clark, Manifest Destiny, covered wagon thing. And it is no coincidence that we became a spacefaring nation: "Space Race" or no, it was the next logical step in our history.

We’ll always be excited about exploring space -- as long as we’re doing something exciting there. The International Space Station is neat, but it won’t be exciting until we’re using it to build the first Mars expedition spaceship. If we’re “boldly going where no man has gone before,” and not just splashing around in the wading pool for 40 years, Americans will be excited with that.

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