Instead, we’re perpetually “a decade” from the Moon.  Returning to the Moon, not going there in the first place!  Our second Space Station is behind schedule– and when we do finish it, it’ll be a mere five years from the scrapheap!  (Next year, the last Shuttle lifts the last component, and retirement is looking like a 2016 timeframe.)  By the Nine Divines, we were supposed to have spinning wheels in orbit that would make von Braun envious from beyond the grave!

Instead, we have a billion-dollar showcar that’s cross-dressing as a truck, kills a high percentage of its passengers, and can’t live up to any of its original performance specs– turnaround time, cost per pound to orbit, man-hours of maintenance per flight…

Instead, the last NASA Director who knew his rectum from a mine shaft lies in a hospital because he was flying in an aircraft as old as he was.  Where’s “No Sparrow Shall Fall” when you need it?

Instead, our space agency has been told that their new focus is outreach to the Islamic world.

Help us private industry, you’re our only hope…

What my generation can’t do with computers and a template to build on, these men did with technology that seems ancient today. The Landing Module computer had less than 4,000 programmable words (yes, words– all commands were phrased like “Verb 884″ or “Noun 284″)… and the Saturn’s guidance computer ran on a two megahertz CPU.

Truly, the Apollo astronauts were pioneers.

This highlights something I’ve believed ever since I began edging into libertarianism (and Tam has pointed out the same thing)– private enterprise beats the pants off governmental agencies in the spaceflight arena.  Think about it– NASA can’t even keep up a reliable transport to the ISS (much less the Moon), but private enterprise can conceive, build, and launch a new transport in less than five years.

Of course, it still looks like astronauts will have to hitch rides from the Russians, but maybe it’ll be a one time thing now.

Via Linoge, a wonderful little app.  Even in our local neighborhood, the distances and times involved are tremendous.  Most plans for a Mars mission are timed for around 2 1/2 to 3 years.  A mission to Venus would last about a year.  With our current technology, the outer Solar System is out of reach, much less the rest of our galaxy.  Now begin to imagine the rest of space.

Heck, we live in suburbia.  Boring G2 dwarf in a boring neighborhood, with a few oddball planets.  Compared to some stars out there, our Sun is a pipsqueak:

And then you get to the fact that our universe is huge:

Thy pow’r thought the universe displayed…

2013.  47 months.

This is worse than waiting for the next Bond movie or the Zombieland sequel.  Almost 4 years?  I don’t even have a calendar that goes that far out to mark.  And I bet Western Union won’t hold a message 46 months for me, will they now?

On a more serious note, if I hear one more “Our government should have taken that money and…”  I will be spending time in a padded cell.  Look, NASA is probably the one government agency that provides a return on investment.  If we had given THEM the billion dollars in pork, we’d have flying cars now.

This is a Delta IV Heavy liftoff from the Cape.  I looked this launch up, and it carried a DSP satellite into orbit on 11 November 2007.

I’ve seen the same type of shot before, but it’s still amazing that the camera survives.