I've always been a space enthusiast, I was ten years old when Sputnik was launched, and it confirmed my conviction that man was destined for the stars. I expected to see the exploration, and hopefully, the colonization of the solar system during my lifetime. But lately I've been having second thoughts, not only about the feasibility of these concepts, but my own motives about them.

Space is a hostile environment for us and for our machines, and I've started to wonder how many of my early feelings about it were due to my own adolescent fantasies instead of what was good for the species. After a lifetime following the space program, I have mixed feelings about it. I can see that many of our scientific goals have been realized (I never expected all 8 major planets, and many satellites, comets and asteroids, would have been explored in detail by robot spacecraft in only 50 years). But our manned efforts seem to have fallen short in producing real results, due to their great expense and the perfectly legitimate desire to protect human lives. SDAI is right, we have little guarantee a Mars expedition would be able to return home alive, even if all mission systems performed perfectly.

I still believe we should have a manned space program, and a major component in it should be the collection and preservation of data on the effects on humans of prolonged space flight. In the event a more effective propulsion system replaces chemical rockets in the future, we should have the knowledge base ready to back up more aggressive manned space efforts. All future manned missions should be evaluated on how well they serve this goal. The time for flashy space stunts is over, now comes the hard work of developing a technology and building a lasting infrastructure.

There is no need for space groupies like us to succumb to despair, travel by wooden sailing ship in the 16th century was expensive, dangerous and unhealthy too, and sail opened the world to human commerce before steamships and aircraft replaced it. Forums like this one and people like us play an important role in determinig man's future in space, like the British Interplanetary Society and the German rocket clubs of the 20s and 30s, we can keep the dream alive and provide an inspiration to the men and women who will someday walk on forbidden lands under alien skies.