> I was born too late to witness it live on TV - but astronauts (and 
> especially the Apollo guys) have always been my heros throughout 
> childhood.

It is one of my earliest memories. Well, when I was young, I always thought 
that by now we would have at least a base on the moon. Maybe have gone to 
Mars.

Now I suppose we will remain earthbound forever. It is not worth it (in 
monetary terms). We know what our planets look like. They are not very 
interesting. Terraforming? Takes too long, if possible at all. Mining? Not 
economical.

Explore other worlds, other planets, other suns? Unless somebody comes up 
with a way to travel faster than light - no chance. And faster-than-light 
travel? Highly improbable - I guess the chances are around zero for anybody 
finding a way to bypass Einstein. Even if somebody did, we would still need 
a means of radioactive shielding (at high velocities any incoming radiation 
becomes really mean short-wave), a deflector shield (at really high speeds 
even a small speck of dust has lots of destructive energy) and a vast, cheap 
energy source to power all this. So: another dream gone bust.

This is rather depressing.

On the other hand, physics can be tricked. I remember writing an essay on 
sub-micro and nano-lithography some 20 years ago. Why it would be impossible 
to do without having to resort to gamma-rays. Man, was I wrong. Who would 
have guessed at immersion lithography back then? Therefore my comment 
above - while I don't think so with what I know now, there may be a way to 
navigate around Einstein - something nobody has currently thought of... 
well, hope always dies last.

As a side note, guess how big the Apollo guidance computer was: memory 
capacity was just 4 kB with 36 kB ROM!  ;-)

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