Where is America's space program?

A summer night several years ago, I was staring at the stars in my back yard, when one slowly moved across the sky above me, suddenly, the star completely changed direction and covered a vast amount of distance in just a split second. This happened two or three times and then the 'star' was gone.

While I don't know what the 'star' was, I doubt very highly it was built in America, and it certainly wasn't a natural phenomenon. Yet, the event reinspired my desire to fly into space and to look down upon the earth. But such thoughts seemed silly that day, unless that star came down to earth and took me for a ride.

Today, the NYTimes wrote an article, Report Says Space Program Is Lacking Money and Focus that points out that the U.S. space program is in disarray. More important, it appears that NASA will never get me into space.

New planet findings point out that the reality of life on other planets is almost guaranteed, yet multiple states are still fighting the theory of evolution. Since the American education system can't seem to produce scientists, should there be any surprise that many Americans would question evolution and hate science?

In reality, most Americans are fundamentally ignorant when it comes to science - apparently we're just too dumb, too lazy, or too uninspired.

A year ago yesterday, however, hope and inspiration were rekindled as Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne become the first privately funded and developed spaceship to reach outer space. And my dream of flying into space started to seem possible.

The way things are going, only pioneers like Rutan and private space flight appear to have the ability to inspire renewed interest in space and science.

Space, it now appears, is up to private enterprise.