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I agree and I think our leadership has thought would happen after the glory days of the moon missions. It hasn't. Only a couple of companies are interested in exploring space and SpaceX, the leader, is only interested in performing work for the government, a guaranteed payer.

Of course, all that paying with debt won't come back to kill us or cause World War III/IV.

Unfortunately, I think the private market is at least a decade behind NASA. I also think it's too high of a risk -- I believe it was Space-X that had their catastrophe and ended up having to pay/work for double the amount because of said catastrophe. I think it will be inreasingly difficult as more catastrophes happen (NASA had its share) to get funding from private sources.

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While I agree with the doubters about the practicality of manned missions, we can't overlook the fantastic successes of the robotic exploration of Mars, Titan, Pluto and many other places in the solar system. Robots are the future of space exploration. I think any reasonable person would deduce that upon an examination of the results.

A lot of people think that this technology is either: A Impossible (which is myopic and ignorant) or B so far off as to not worry about it. Of course, people who actively follow robotics and even AI can see that we are in the very beginning of a massive stage of development for both. We're on the launchpad of a major announcement for the future of humanity -- and I'd even go so far as to wager that we'll see it in the next few years.

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Only a natural castrophe offers any promise of slowing humanity's blind growth and subsequent plunder of earth's resources. An exotic virus or bacterium, the eruption of a super volcano, or maybe a gamma ray burst are about the only calamities that could effectively reduce the population now. Of course, ultimately starvation will do the job, but by then the earth will be a resource desert.

I was trying to avoid making religion the focal point but if you're to look at the statistics it cannot be denied that the religious outlook on children is a glaring factor in the reason we have such high levels of overpopulation.

Interestingly enough, the birthrates have been falling for quite some time, and while I consider MTV to be ''white noise'' in this day and age: Their show Sixteen and Pregnant has been directly linked to a lower birth-rate.

Unfortunately, Islam and some sects of Christianity are still stuck in the ''farmer'' type of mentality for children (i.e., the more hands available to tend to your land, the better off you are). The stupid will surely produce the smart, but with the internet it's become more and more difficult to brainwash children.

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I think history has taught us that socialism will only work with a small, homogeneous and intelligent population. The Nordic countries of Europe are a good example of my point.

Capitalism works best in a society that allows a de facto pyramid caste system with high achievers in smaller numbers at the top and a very large number of consumers at the lower levels.

I didn't want to make this into what is better -- I was trying to say that this is an important fusion of two different ideologies who can work together. Both are lofty, dewy-eyed love letters to people who don't really have a long-term view of the world. Capitalism necessitates that we destroy the world, Socialism necessitates that we destroy our sense of self.

Neither are working and I think the only way that they function is by mixing and melding. The due respect to all law-abiding people regardless of their outlook/physical/geographical characteristics with the understanding that competition, strife and conflict are all machines that produce results.

If we can find a balance to this, we will all drastically improve the human condition. (Some Notes: I am not advocating in any way, shape or form for an Egalitarian government. Nor am I suggesting that physical violence is a worthy prescription as our future in AI, Gaming and Simulation will make it unnecessary.)

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First he would have to understand that government is not a reality TV show where he alone calls the shots. Compromise seems to be anathema to the man. He lacks a basic understanding of how our government works. I think the Republican Senate is showing him that he wasn't elected to be their King.

The military, too, is showing him that. He is at best a good stop-gap for us to tell Washington to stop dicking around with truly abysmal candidates. If you're from the outside looking in and watching two reptiles debate -- who cannot abstain from lying for even a minute, you understand that the American people were essentially left with no choice.

However, we need a real capitalist to sell space -- because for your everyman (and I don't mean this as an insult) it doesn't seem like a healthy investment. What do I care if in 5 generations we could start terraforming? I won't believe to see it!

I think if we're to educate, it should encompass the princple that ''I will try my hardest to leave the Earth in a better place than when I was born, even if it only means that I myself am a good person'', which sounds ironically optimistic (dewy-eyed is the phrase I used) but really, we need some mentality that will get people to understand that this planet, here and now, is all we have -- along with the people inhabiting it. We should start behaving with that axiom in mind.