Finally! I've found my Sancho Panza!

Never would have guessed, but apparently there are people that agree on (some) of the things I say. Not that they know that I say (some of) the things they agree on, but still, it's a start. Here's a little snippet from an article on Wired, written by... James Cameron, yes I know, he's the guy that did the Titanic flick... but that's not important right now. Let's focus on the deeper thoughts of the guy...

The last time humans crossed space to a destination was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. In the 32 years since, no man has seen, with his own eyes, Earth as that beautiful, solitary blue sphere, and - reality check - no woman has ever seen it at all. We've been only to low Earth orbit since 1972, and from that altitude of 220 miles, looking at the 7,900-mile-diameter Earth is like peering at a basketball with your cheek pressed against it. Yes, you'll see curvature, but you're not seeing the whole thing. We've spent 32 years "exploring space" in low Earth orbit. Exploring nothing. To stay in orbit you have to go 17,000 mph,or Mach 25. So we've spent three decades going nowhere fast.

Now, for those of you who know me a bit or who have had to endure one of my rants about the lack of progress in 'recent' (read: 60) years... Isn't that eerie? I mean, I actually went and checked the house for hidden microphones and stuff. It's that spooky!

For those of you that don't know me that well, don't you think that dear Mr. James Cameron has a point? Ever been to the Kennedy Space Center? Ever wondered why they're still glorifying and celebrating their biggest achievement ever, even though it happened over 30 years ago? Well, because there's nothing else to glorify and celebrate. We've gone to the moon a couple of times, the Russians lost interest and bang, that was it. Let's just circle around the earth for a couple of decades, yes, let's.

Don't know about you, but when I was a 10 year old kid and the Space Shuttle first took off, I had visions of it flying to the moon, to Mars, to wherever. I figured that sure, the first few times it would be easier to test landings on Earth. You know, makes it easier to evacuate the crew in case the tyres blow or something. But twenty years onwards, it still hasn't actually gone places... The 10year old in me is pretty disapppointed, I can tell you...

Full Wired article here.

^{Now doesn't that look inviting?}