In my father's lifetime, man made it to the moon, but they haven't been back since. Is anyone else worried about this?
Look at the time and effort wasted on teen idols, boy bands, re-engineering of cars so they'll look slightly different from
last year's models, Amazing New Products, etc. Now I'm not saying that science has the answers to everything, or that we should all drop what we consider fun and work harder, but why hasn't any more been done with this in over 30 years? This is definitely a case of "Old Stuff is Better" - in terms of both achievement and spirit. Our race set foot on another stellar body!
Between the declining education system and the slow alignment of the forces that make the bottom line the final word (WTO, MAI, NAFTA, etc.) I have been persuaded towards the opinion that the actions of my generation is doing more to harm the effort to get off this rock than to help it. That saddens me greatly.
Now, there are some bright spots. This whole thing was motivated by the news today that the Indian space research agency was lauching an unmanned probe to the moon. The russian portion of the international space station is nearing completion. The SETI@Home project has more computer power than it needs, proving grassroots interest is still strong in space exploration and investigation. Good news is out there if you look for it - but this good news is nestled among reports of Elian Gonzales' return to Cuba and reports on the sales of Brittany Spears' latest audio abomination.
Some encouragement would be nice for those of us who still think that humans are trying to do good things with their 70 year vacation from non-existence...