I have never known a day in my life without an active space program.... and now my grandchildren will just know it as a footnote in their history books...
An active space program is still with us (and, in fact, is just getting "warmed up") -- just not NASA's version of it. The footnote will be only NASA's shuttle program -- a worthy and memorable footnote, to be sure.
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I never thought I'd see the day when the U.S. ceded the initiative in manned space exploration to other nations. Really, really sad.
Nothing has been ceded; the only difference is that it is now largely in private hands (with some support from NASA) and not the government alone.
CaT
If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracle of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.
- Lyndon Johnson, on signing the Wilderness Act into law (1964)
