Space is truly the final Frontier.

It is efforts like this in the private sector that will determine mans roll in Space exploration. A new day will come when , as Humanity, we will need to reach farther than we have ever gone.That time is NOW.
When I was a young kid watching the Apollo missions, I felt that we would be landing men on MARS by the time I was 30 years old, that time has past, but not the DREAM of it.

Anyone born in the early 60's might just know how I feel.

It's a Great day today to see the triumph of Man's quest as a independent source, reach for the SKIES.

Children of the 60s don't have a monopoly on that feeling.

I'm excited by it all, but I also feel like it's a little too late for me. I have no real desire to have a child to pass all this onto, so I can afford a selfish outlook on it. I'm 33 now.. not in the greatest of physical health.. (and after how badly 2004 has gone, probably not the best of mental health either) and it seems like I may end up much like my father did: dead just before 50. Perhaps my perceptions are colored unfavorably by how slow things have gone with manned spaceflight post-Apollo and up until this point.. I don't know.. but as good as all this X-Prize stuff has made me feel the past week or so, eventually my personal feelings of dread and what not start to kick in. I was hoping to prolong the positive buzz for awhile, but I came here and saw a great deal of bickering in at least one other section of the forum.. that sort of stuck a pin in that effort.

In part I know how, you feel. After the 9/11 attack, I thought, how can Man trully reach his potential after all the hate. Well it's a long road to the things that should matter most. And even my grandchildren may not walk on the Moon or explore Space, but somewhere down that long road, some steps will go forward. Past the Hate, Past the political strife and lead Mankind into a NEW World of Discovery. It's all I can Hope, that one day this will Be a Reality.

Hope in Mankinds lofty adventures is all we can look forward to.
Call me a hopeless Dreamer of Dreams, but in the end isn't that all we have.

I think the politics can and will be significantly eliminated from the equation as more civilians get into the act around the world. I wasn't too thrilled that part of the post-second-flight press conference turned a bit rah-rah-wave-the-flag, but I can tolerate it in light of the accomplishment.

As for 9/11 and all the hate: Hopefully that will pass, too. There are many of us who care more about the advancement of the species as a whole than whatever bogus color-coded terror alert might be issued to keep us frightened on a given day. I'm sure I'll be thought of as heartless for saying this, but I can honestly say that I do not care in the least about 9/11 at this point. All I care about right now is getting over the shock from all these hurricanes, (Charley came ashore 5 miles from me. While I was fortunate to come out of the storms intact physically and property-wise, I can tell that dealing with all this has changed me, and maybe not in a good way) and then getting on with my life. Been thinking lately about a possible return to school, to get into something that would either enable me to study space, or to participate in any effort to get more people up there. Unfortunately, high school gave me such an insanely negative attitude toward school (no matter how many times people told me college would be different) that I may not be able to get past such a deep-seated negative opinion.. not to mention the negative feelings I mentioned in the first post coloring my outlook.

I agree about the politics and such, and In the wake of destruction that the Hurriacans have brought, I hope you are well. Hang in there. I'm from California and have no idea of what such force nature can bring to us, other than Eathquakes but those are rare.

Personal Quote,"In time This to shall pass." Take Care.

Everyone in the house agrees that we were incredibly lucky to suffer no physical damage from Charley. (or any of the other storms, for that matter) All we had were some downed limbs from the slash pines out front. My house is surrounded on 3 sides by a pretty dense forest of pine and palm trees. (as much as you can call a city block-sized area with one house on it a "forest".. although every other block in the neighborhood is the same) I know it came within 5 miles of us because a friend of ours that lives 5 miles away went outside while the eye passed over his house. But even with no physical damage to this house, everyone in it has been colored by the experience. I saw on some TV show that the divorce rate after Andrew went way up, even years afterword. I can now understand why.

Anyway, I've never been much of a patriot-type. Artificial divisions just get in the way. I've been far more interested in the advancement of humankind as a whole. Maybe I've not been the best contributor to that, but I'm trying to get my act together. Ideally, I'd like to have lived a life where (just for example) something like having an asteroid named after me would be considered trivial in light of other accomplishments.. but then all that internal strife gets in the way, and I just sit here frustrated.

you forget that the period of greatest technological achievement the world has ever known was the Second World War.
In fact, the rockets that propelled man into space originated during the war as balistic missiles-the V2 whcih became the Redstone whcih launched Shepard and Grissom on their flights.

Yep, technological advancements often arise from conflict. Ironic, isn't it?