With the dawn of the space age 50 years ago and the new developments that have occurred in the last few years with the mars rovers still running at full strength, International Space Station nearing 70% completion, Shuttle program being succeeded by Ares, and the newest Mars polar lander due to be launched later this year. Here are a few topics to discuss:

--Bush wants to return to the moon no later than 2015 and have a permanent human presence there by 2020 mining and manufacturing corps have been drooling over the prospects of tapping into our closest celestial neighbor's cache of viable resources.
--There has been a slew of proposed "space hotels" by various firms.
--The Chinese military recently has shot one of their satellites with a non-explosive warhead as well stirring up some pentagon officials over prospects of a new arms race in the midst.
--The Ares program being the shuttles successor.


Here are my responses to the above, feel free to follow suit.

I am all for tapping into the resources of our natural satellite as well as maintaining a permanent presence to further the human races instinct to conquer the cosmos.

Space hotels are a great alternative to those mountain top and beach front resorts since you will get a better view of the earth and can see stars during the "day" time.

The prospects of a nation knocking one of its own satellites out of orbit is daunting to say the least since it turns into more pieces of space debris and further increases space junk that could jeopardize future missions and lead to a potential "Star war"

The Ares family of vehicles is a requirement to further our reach into the heavens. This is a hybrid of the Apollo and Shuttle technologies that will inevitably lead to bigger and better mediums of exploration in the future.