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Thank you Mr. Bill Crintoon; Mr. Bernie Schrartw, Mr. Bill Richardson

That might be.

We could also blame NASA for not doing enough, but that would be misplaced blame. It is Congress that lacks vision and can't see what to do until the wolf is at the door. Some blame goes to the White House, since they can propose and suggest, but Congress gets most of it.

The Apollo moon landing program came from Congress, not from the White House --in spite of the Big Speech.

In any case we should not look back on how this came about, but look at the situation and rectify the situation. Water under the bridge or something like that. The sooner Congress gets the space program in gear, the sooner America can meet this challenge from China and the better America will be able to hold its own.

And I mean hold its own, because China will get a piece of the pie no matter what, and to let them pick off the easy to reach plums that could have been America's would be a betrayal of trust in Congress. As if . . .

>>because China will get a piece of the pie no matter what, and to let them pick off the easy to reach plums that could have been America's would be a betrayal of trust in Congress.

I would like a piece of land on the earth instead of on the moon.

We could also blame NASA for not doing enough, but that would be misplaced blame. It is Congress that lacks vision
What did we get from our space program? How about the ability to tell which brand of watch is on bin Laden's wrist from orbit? The military "payback" is obvious. And, once someone establishes a serious presence in orbit, say at L5, the real economic returns may become, so to speak, astronomical -- don't forget, it costs almost nothing to ship goods down to Earth... (If resources could be gathered, say, from the Moon or from passing asteroids, rather than shipped up from Earthside...)

There won't be a free, profitable, commercial manned presence in space as long as Congress keeps NASA's de facto monopoly on outer space in place.