But we (will shortly) no longer have a manned space program, so Captain Kirk will never exist.

Nah, short term it makes more sense to have machines explore for us. All of the problems manned flight requires make anything more than things like the ISS overly complex.

Remember how excited we got when W. said we were going to Mars? Big whoop (not).

The human adventure will come, in time, as we work to resolve the issues meatbags introduce; and the problems get fixed as we learn from the mechanics.

If only we funded NASA with a tenth of what we spend on the military, we could make much more progress. But we don’t so it’s gonna be slow.

And tragically, we pray, weep and mourn for a few bodies willingly risking themselves in space than we do the multitudes dead and wounded in pointless wars.