"Faster please?"---More like "any time, sweetheart"

One of Glenn Reynold's favorite sayings.  In this context, it is space colonization.  I think that it is time to recognize that it isn't a matter of "faster please".  It is a matter of "any time, sweetheart".  It isn't going to happen at all if we continue on our present course.

In 1969, while men were standing on the moon, this country starting pulling in its horns.  The Saturn V assembly line was canceled.  The nuclear upper stage, the Nerva, was about to be.  That was the hardware that could have taken us to Mars---scrapped like so much trash.  We were closer to the asteroids, planets, and stars then than we are now.  We had the means to get to Mars then, but we can't get to low earth orbit now.  We aren't going forward into space, we are in full retreat.  Not only in space, but every-damned-where else as well.

The private Pyle analogy is apt.  People need to get that stupid grin off their faces and get with the damned program, or forget about it, sweethearts.