Hi spacester: I came late to this thread and discussion. There seems to be a lot of stuff that went down in the weeks when I was away on a long holiday and had been rebuilding my PC.<br /><br />I'm not sure what position you've been referring to, as I don't have time to trawl all the old postings. But for my part; many of my old postings contain the gist of my philosophy. But I lifted the text of one of my postings from last year and updated it slightly. <br /><br />It's how I feel, for what it's worth.<br /><br />Matthew.<br /><br />*****************************************<br /><br /> />>FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, whether we have issues minor or major with the Vision For Space and the ESAS, everyone on this board and others like it out there have an opportunity to build towards a permanent human presence in space. Mankind could become a multi-planet species with this first step forward. Already the first strong seeds of Private Spaceflight ventures have been sown. There will be a lot of mishaps, mistarts, false-claims and snake oil during the next couple of decades, but I firmly believe that by the time I’m in an old folks home, the first prospectors of the Near-Earth Asteroids will be starting work and the Space Hotel(s) for Tourists will be making a profit. Cheap Access to Space will have become a reality, driven by commercial concerns and the ingenuity of Private Industry. The technological touchstones for these ventures are being rebuilt now by Nasa to levels that will reach then handily surpass the heyday of the Apollo era.<br /><br />Too glib, too hopeful, you say? Well, we’ve all seen what dreams can build. Just as the re-building dreams in Louisiana & Mississippi will and must take hold, our future dreams can take hold, too.<br /><br />What? Too much like Apollo? The VSE takes the good parts from Apollo and builds upon them. This is merely the first step, as I keep saying.<br /><br />What, too expensive at $100 billion+ plus bucks? Spread over a decade-and-a-half, it’ <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!! LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>