Seventy-two years ago, we got mousetrapped^[1] into a war to save civilization.  After a certain amount of fumbling^[2] (and with a lot of help from the folks who’d got there first), 1365 days later^[3] it was Mission Accomplished.  The future was bright, and the sky was... well, not ‘‘the limit’’ anymore, but the Edge of a New Frontier.

Sixty-eight years after, and...

We don’t have an Orbital Hilton or a tourist lodge on the moon and Pan-Am can’t run you up there on a shuttle -- in fact, they’re struggling to make the trains run on time while NASA astronauts have to bum a lift from the Russians.  But our .gov can bigawd tune in every cel-phone call, walkie-talkie and baby monitor everywhere, and read everyone’s e-mail and web-browsing history to boot.  China plans to put a missile base on the Moon and this country’s space program is all about listening at keyholes and peering in windows.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:29:46 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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