I sometimes get into a funk where I think most of the people on the planet are huge assholes with no sense of proportion or ambitions for the future. I sometimes get to the point where I want to leave Earth and make my home in the abandoned villas of the long-vanished Martians (dark they were, and golden-eyed).

Then I’ll see something like the Space Shuttle leave from Cape Canaveral and all my faith in humanity as a species is instantly restored. We can do anything. We can solve any problem through application of science.

The current plan is to retire the Space Shuttle in 2010 (without a replacement vehicle until 2014… which is a dreadful mistake, and a topic for another day).

I will attend a launch before that time comes.