There is no other suitable real estate in this solar system (not even an affordable rehab job), and the stars are much too far away. Science fiction has been relegated to what it started as - "fairy tales for grownups" - when it isn't used as a funhouse mirror for our dystopian society and what else could Go Horribly Wrong.

Senator Proxmire and Presidunce Reagan had the last laugh on all the rest of us.

We did it, and then there weren't any further goals, and pretty soon there weren't any more "Commies" either. So we scaled back and back and back under the "guidance" of "pragmatists" who told us we had to concentrate on things we could do.

The issue I have is the costs of putting humans into space. The idea that we must populate other planets and systems as way to insure the human race is insane. If we can't take care of what we have, we should perish. Not pollute other places.
Exploration using machines is much more cost effective. When it comes right down to it, there are many other, more important things we need to concentrate on. Like saving this planet.

I was a sophomore in high school when Sputnik was launched. That reinforced my decision to pursue a career in engineering. I completed a tough undergraduate education in a program at Cornell called "Engineering Physics" and my graduate education was largely financed by a NASA grant obtained by my advisor. In those days, a career in what is now called STEM was regarded as almost a patriotic duty if one had the skills necessary to succeed. That all changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was fortunate to find a job after graduation with a large multinational corporation not associated with the defense industry. Born at the right time, I'm now retired with an actual pension. The internet allows me to observe rather easily what our modern society is morphing into. The downsizing of the space program is just the most obvious consequence of the change in direction.

advances of the 60's was worth the space program. Not to mention that computer on your wrist would be as big as a house. Without the space program we'd still have all the conveniences of 1957.

There is still a space program.
What got cut was a manned space program. And yes, I miss that too.

And Orbital, and ULA.

Space x is in my family, so I try to never miss a launch online.

had a great scrapbook with photos of Redstones, Agenas, Nikes, Junos, and such. School would stop when there'd be a manned launch, starting with that first Alan Shepard suborbital flight. We were proud(well, I was anyway) that one of the original astronauts went to our local high school. That was Wally Schirra. And that made him my favorite astronaut, if such a thing makes any sense. It doesn't any more but I guess it does for a kid. There were only seven of them so we knew them all, well before their flights.

Ok, cutting this short. Yes, I miss the space program. The first moon landing was almost 47 years ago and the last was 43 years ago. I don't think we're going anywhere now unless someone invents an efficient, safe new drive.

Was just reading an article about the different compositions of different areas of Pluto and chuckled at some of the names like Picard Mons and Cthulu Regio.

Great work, place namers!

Well, as I said, to do it in a way that doesn't risk lives horribly, is what NASA was trying to do with Bush's Constellation program, but it was too expensive to re-do Apollo, to current standards. And yes, NASA is over cautious, and ossified. But being gun-shy about killing people is good - I know you're a Vet, so I don't mean anything by that other than the obvious.

NASA tried faster-better-cheaper, and we crashed two probes on Mars. End of game. After each shuttle disaster, the program stood down for two years - the losses in progress were astonishingly large. In the end, it probably doesn't pay to take the risks, because when the inevitable disaster strikes, the toll is high. They say about "faster-better-cheaper" you can have two of the three, but not all three.