When a bad machine is retired from duty all the remaining choices are frequently bad. The money to make a better one has already been spent. The need for it does not disappear just because the design is flawed. And politicians will make a killing either way.

Remember, the famous tile problem was known from day one! The need to re-engineer the whole heat shield was known years before the first shuttle flew. The fact that we do not know how to make a cost-effective reusable spaceship with a humongous 22 ton payload capacity was known since the second or third mission, when we could have stopped construction on the other three shuttles.

We could have decided that the shuttle would be used only when men and women were absolutely necessary (and not just part of the payload) since the early 70’s, but did not.

“Do not now try to pretend that what you said was something other than that only democracies are free from corruption.”

Yes at the level of corruption that we should be concerned about. To pick out minor discrepancies in democracies is hardly the same level of corruption in Russia which involves murder. If you think like that instead of concerning about little backhand payments to government members, which is insignificant in comparison, then what I originally said was absolutely correct!

I wonder why you actually care to be so picky at both my comments, and towards democratic governments. People are human beings, if they’re in high positions some may be tempted to take bribes etc, it doesn’t make them the same level of bad as what dictator regimes are, which murder people for hardly anything. If you find your democratic country (if you are living in one) so disgusting, go live somewhere like Russia. Then you might have a reason to complain!

Please BA can’t you fix this blog up with some means of editing or at least previewing please? I hate having to “edit” typos etc .. in this fashion rather than directly on the post.

We need to colonise the Moon and the asteroids and Mars (Probably in that order.)

If we are to have a positive future we can’t give up and surrender space to those who (lets face it) will be our enemies or at best just be out for themselves.

Are we sometimes hypocritical? Perhaps – but so are they.

Are we flawed and imperfect and often in the wrong – sure – but so are they & I would say worse. Do I think Western culture and ways are better than Eastern & third world – yes, quite frankly I do. History bears me out on this – science and feminism, the abolition of slavery and the idea of human rights and democracy all arose out of Western civilisation -first Greek, then Roman, then European and now American.

China and the Third world – Asian and African and Arab – has given the world despotism and dictatorship and .. um ..more despotism and corruption and dictatorship …

Do I prefer a world we we control the Moon, where we control the asteroids and set the leading example? You betchya!

We need to fund NASA properly. We need to fly the shuttles and replace them with something better. We need to take another giant leap to the Moon and this time stay on our feet there rather than falling back on our butts. We need to walk and learn and grow. We need to be the one’s in charge of the High frontier, the final frontier that goes outwards practically to infinity in every direction.

To do otherwise is, ultimately, to fade away and die. To lose our future rather than taking it in our own hands. That simple.

Nebvermind aliens. What about other – far nastier human empires – Imagine China controlling the Moon or Russia or who knows who else?

Comfy at that thought?

Just because the US abandons the idea of travelling further into and settling the solar system doesn’t mean that others – hostile or potentially hostile and totalitarian rather than Western and nominally democratic will do likewise.

Suppose China develops the power to colonise and control the Moon ..and Mars .. and the solar system ’spose they put big militray bases up there. Their technology will then be vastly superior to ours, their spiritand moral fargreaterand their control and influence over everybody else willbe very great indeed. Spose the Chinese “communist” dictatorship says space is its domain – and stamps down on the Earth and controls that from its high ground too. Imagine a world where US power and influence has collapsed completely. Ever read Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ novel with the classic image of the dictators Foot stamping on the persons face,crushing and grinding it down forever?

What sort of a nation and a future does that leave for the United States of America – or Australia or England or any Western civilised nation?

China has one of the nastiest governments on the planet -justask theToibetans or the victims of Tianamin Square 1989. They have little if any regard for human life, they have a generation of “little Emperors” brain-washed by propaganda and with a very unbalanced male :female sex ratio.

Do you trust them with your future? With your children?

If we don’t go forwards., if we don’t do the hard things like colonising the Moon – then we’ll stagnate and rot and fall.

Its already happening but hopefully its not too late to change course ..