More Buck Rogers

There is a lot of truth to this article.

And it also explains why so many people talk about how when they were wee lads they would dream about space...

The truth is at some point in most people's lives the bubble bursts with the realisation that in human history only a half dozen hundred people have ever gone into space. In other words, my own personal chance at getting my own derriere blasted on a rocket: zero.

Also to be selected to be an Astronaut you need to get an amazing resume, be in top physical shape (although you don't really need to be to go in space), and even then you have to compete in a pool of 1000 similar people every year for one single position. And even then if you do get selected you might be put on a flight 4 years away... If the flight doesn't get cancelled then you get one shot at an adventure of a lifetime. Oh, and good luck if you're a Canuck getting on an American bird.

It's selfish.

At some point I realised that. Why should I get to go on the taxpayers back when no one else gets the chance? What makes a bunch of NASA-sucks ups, in Chris Hadfield's words, "deserve" the right to go into space?

When I dreamed about going into space as a kid I thought of Buck Rogers, or Enterprise - where everyone got a chance to go. That's what NASA has lost - the inspiration that even you could go into space.

Instead NASA is much more interested in testing dead frog legs, and seeing how mice crap in space. That's not my idea of space exploration. That's not space cowboys, that's space nerds.

That's what I'm hoping a new private commercial launch market will provide. A chance at real colonization - more Buck Rogers less David Suzuki.

We should be focused on creating real economies utilizing space resources, and colonization to go along with it. Anything else looks nice on a documentary, but it's not what got Von Braun, Aldrin, or any high chinned kid involved in engineering and science.