Each week there was a new step toward the stars. And this was not science fiction, this was real. There was an exhilaration to it that I don't think can be found in any other venture. The door to infinite space was creaking open for us.

Never, in all the long history of mankind, had the heavens been reachable. And then, suddenly, they were. Satellites were going up one after another… and functioning. A few men, strapped perilously to the tops of dangerous rockets, followed.

Then came the Gemini program, and our first serious steps away from the planet. As it moved forward, we saw men living in space for more and more days at a time; they learned to rendezvous; they even left their capsules and "walked in space."

And then we geared-up for a trip to the moon… and succeeded!

Why wouldn't a young person believe humanity was on its way to the stars? Humanity WAS on its way to the stars!

On top of that, we had Star Trek. While Star Trek was clearly fiction, it was easy to see it as just a few steps ahead of us. And Star Trek was all about morality tales. We looked forward not only to an interesting future, but to a good one, where we all became better.

And again, this was not at all unreasonable – we were taking clear steps toward it day by day. This was REAL.

And Then…

And then, it all stopped. Skylab and the shuttle were steps backward, useful mostly for saving face. Humanity stopped progressing and pulled back from the stars. If any of us still need a reason to judge government as unworthy of our time and treasure, here it is.

Since space was closed, we've endured boring, washed-out decades, focused on anything but the awe-inspiring, the good, and the heroic. Five-plus decades have been stripped of the greatest excitement, discovery, and growth that was ever within humanity's grasp.