[Prudence]

I think we need the "tourist vehicles" to magnify public interest. Shuttle launches have become rather blase, no? Successful launches had become mere footnotes on the evening news. Average citizens do not marvel that we have an actual, honest-to-goodness SPACE STATION where people can LIVE for months at a time.

The shuttle was so cool at first -- partly because it looked more "plane-like." It came in for landings like an over-powered glider. Even given its age it's still astounding technology, but we're ho-hum about it.

Not only are we ho-hum about successful flights, but when the flight ends in tragedy we're shocked. Stunned. We watch the footage repeat all day as if it were as surprising as a commercial jetliner crash on American soil. We no longer think about the enormity of risk involved in space flight as we've grown accustomed to it just being something that people do. Some people go to work in an office building, some people go to work in space.

We don't have the drive to race to the moon or build a recoverable, reuseable space vehicle any more. There isn't a clear goal in sight. "Build a better shuttle." Whoopie. Who cares? Most people don't. We went to space, it was fun, let's move on. The public doesn't see the impact of space flight (and the opportunity to conduct experiments in a weightless environment) on collective scientific knowledge. I imagine many people see NASA as an expensive, and possibly obsolete, toy.

The X Prize was kind of exciting and brought the space geeks out of the closet. But if there's going to be public pressure to continue innovating, the public has to buy into the dream. And if we have to take a time out and grow the space tourism industry for that to happen, fine by me.