Space is a part of our daily lives but few people are aware of it unless a satellite glitch knocks out their ability to use a credit card at the gas pump or their ATM. It really isn't hard to sell space services to people, the problem is to sell space exploration.

The difference between space services and exploration is huge and fundamental. Services provide things that become part of our daily lives. Exploration is much more nebulous. Sure, the Hubble provides invaluable data to astronomers, to the general public it's just a source of pretty pictures, hardly worth the several billion dollars it costs. You'll have a hard time finding many people who believe the ISS is worth its projected $100 billion lifetime cost. Things like $297 million Mars Odyssey spacecraft are a waste of money to the average American. In that light, dreams of getting a few hundred times that amount for a manned mission is a pipedream.

Some people still seem to hope for a space-minded billionaire to come to the rescue. "Why doesn't Bill Gates...." Well, it's Bill's money and the only interest I've ever seen him show in space was in Teledesic, and I haven't even heard anything from that in a while.

Others are aware that government seems unlikely to want a massive increase in space exploration and hang their dreams on private industry. However, like the article pointed out, without some return on investment, such dreams are so much pie in the sky.

So, what's left? Quite frankly, I don't know. Between terrorism, the economic slowdown, and perhaps Jimmy Carter's "general malaise", I don't see anyone seriously advocating _why_ we should spend many billion dollars going to Mars, or at least no one that is being taken seriously. Zubrin, et. al. can preach to the choir all day, but until large numbers of people are willing to lift their eyes beyond their daily lives and open their wallets to pay for it, it simply isn't going to happen.