Alan Boyle of MSNBC reports on The coming year on the final frontier:
EARTHLY QUESTIONS dogged most of the developments having to do with space during the past year: Would cosmic ambitions have to be scaled down to cope with post-9/11 realities? (Yes.) Would the international space station have to go crewless due to Russian money troubles? (Probably not.) Would ’N Sync singer Lance Bass become the youngest human to fly in space? (Not this year.)
When it came to rocket science, the successes and the failures balanced out, leaving a cloud over some of the grand space schemes being planned for the next year. Throw in the potential impact of war in Iraq — a war in which the military’s space resources could play a pivotal role — and you’ve got a cliffhanger worthy of a “Star Wars” sequel.
It's time for us as a species to begin the process of leaving this rock and spreading out through Sol's children, beyond this system and further out into the galaxy. And, of course, further away from the reach of an ever-growing oppressive government with absolutely no respect for civil liberties and individual rights. There is, of course, a lot of money to made out there, but of more importance, a lot of answers to be sought.
And new questions to be asked.