Well, SM, this book is very much addressed to people like us! (I'm a little surprised there are no more reactions, BTW).

We've been to space and to the Moon! This already means we can do great things....but we don't go back to other worlds.

Unless we do admit (which I think we should) that a permanent manned presence in space is also a great achievement. The Russians have spent almost 10 full years in space , aboard Mir but that wasn't recognized.

OTOH, so many stories, so many beliefs are so far from reality!
Examples: flying a spacecraft is like flying an aircraft. But it isn't true! We don't need wings in space, we don't bank in space, there's no noise in space, our iris can't allow us to see stars at the same time as any surface reflecting sunlight.
I remember a book written by Ludek Pezek about a trip to Mars. All the illustrations show astronauts in their spacesuit (without helmet and gloves) even while cruising to Mars. A movie called Operation Ganymed has part of the crew wearing a spacesuit all the time too. I can't imagine astronauts would spend months inside spacesuits! (But the movie was kind of good, though).

Space is about weightlessness which is troublesome (with debilitating short and long term effects) but also very very funny! (Jack in the box effect in Skylab)

Space isn't only about Mars. There are billions of possibilities for our future!
(At least, Gore had some knowledge about space ,having presided a commission concerning the flawed HST mirror, showing a genuine interest about Mars Pathfinder and thinking about Triana). But now, we live in the post-Columbia era. What's next for space lovers?

Going to space and working out there are far more complicated than we think.
I don't agree with this. We are not free in space because if we were, we wouldn't be able to return back to earth (talk about freedom when you can't return back home)!
We need the environment the Earth provides us with. We have limitations.

But machines can do a lot more.
Maybe we need a paradigm shift about our relationship towards machines!

We accuse machines of enslaving us (Orwell's 1984) but they can liberate us (a GPS triggered when a car airbag is deployed could save lives in an accidented car even if the passengers have lost consciousness and are in the middle of nowhere and at impossible hours).

Space has thrilled us in our youth. It may disappoint many today, but it won't stop astonishing us.

Raoul