I do readily concur with Tom Murphy that reality of space travel is daunting. I also do agree that hoping for a spacefaring human race with a complete disregard for our home planet is as foolish as it gets. If anything, being able to arrive at a state of "zero waste" as a specie might be a precursor to mastering long voyages. Finally, I do not believe any serious scientist or engineer (students and people on the street are prone to delusions) thinks space travel is mundane. Likewise predicting the future of scientific or engineering evolution or revolutions is something best taken with a spoonful of salt. The future is not quite predictable though we might like to pretend it is so.

No! The feeling ranged from rape to angered ....

The Great China freakout has just begun invite your family, friends, neighbors and country. Shout to the rooftops, take our country back and bla bla bla! I really find it amusing when we in the west get the best of others we call it capitalism, invoke rules, international norms and all shades of bullshit. When we are losing we go: "putting US and European suppliers in a tough spot". Some even add a good dose of human rights drama to it, just to massage our sorry asses. But deep down we all know the truth, which is: the party is over make your peace with it. Electing Mr. Magic Negro will NOT save your sorry ass and that's not why i voted for him. Can you count how many technologies we stole from China or other civilizations? Where should we start from? How much did we pay for it? Ha ha ha...i get it, you have invented patents and flimsy laws expecting some idiots to take it seriously good luck with it. Even China will rise and fall, the next will will rise and fall, and so on...its the way of things ha ha ha