Jay Honeck wrote:

I caught most of it -- and it was fantastic! To hear a president
actually promoting manned space travel, and laying out a plausible, doable
plan to get our space program back on track, was a breath of fresh air on
a bleak and dreary January day.

Hell, maybe we'll set foot on Mars before I die after all?

I often tell my children how the U.S. once led the world in space travel,
and of how my generation grew up with the excitement and national pride of
putting a man on the moon. Until today, I would also sadly explain to
them how we had squandered our future, and abandoned the dream...

Well, President Bush has today put us back on track. As pilots (I like to
call what we do "extremely low earth orbit... :-) let's get the phone
calls and emails rolling to our elected representatives, and tell 'em to
get on board this new initiative!

I'm cautiously optomistic, we are way overdue with our space exploration.

I fear this may only be election year rhetoric. Or strictly a reaction to
the Chinese announcements.

What I don't want is another cold war style of competition. If the Chinese
are serious about going into space then there should be plenty of
opportunity for cooperation. Let them foot the bill for some of the expense
instead of competing with them. Manned space exploration is too expensive
to allow for duplication of effort.

Also, it would be a mistake to abandon our unmanned program, it's too cost
effective.

--
Frank....H