The aerospace industry is in on its knees. Take a look at the latest copy of "Aviation Week and Space Technology" and compare it to a typical one from the late 1960s. The one from the 1960s had 3-4 times as many pages and far more interesting content. The general interest magazine for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was quite thick with many interesting articles. Now it is little more than a pamphlet. The main trade show for the AIAA is the aerospace sciences convention held at Reno, Nevada. The last one was so dismal that there literally was not a single talk worth attending. Young people are not going into aerospace and rightly so (there's no future in it). The old guys like the ones who designed the Apollo Command Module and Viking Aeroshell are retiring in droves. Only a small fraction of the technology that they developed was written down (most of it is still in their heads). Their knowledge is not being passed on to the next generation. Within 10 years, even if a new president wanted to start a major space project, we wouldn't be able to because the knowledge base will have evaporated. That knowledge base which was originally developed for ballisitic missiles and reentry vehicles cost billions of dollars. That same knowledge base is currently going into land fill and retirement homes. It's a national disgrace.

Gary