[FPSPACE] JimO: Sputnik's Legacy

[Jens Kieffer-Olsen]

 Ed,

 I take it that you prefer juvenile romance to officialese BS?

 From now on until 2037 the asteroid Apophis will loom ever larger
 over the intellectual horizon ( and in 2029 over the physical
 horizon too ), so the focus on Mars will correspondingly fade.

 Yet I believe the subsequent two decades will see public enthusiasm
 propel the Chinese - if noone else - all the way to Mars.

 What do you envisage?

 Hopefully not that some 'son of Wernher von Braun' will come out
 of nowhere ( or conquered Iraq ) to enable the USA to land primates
 on the Red Planet before the end of a mere three decades from to-day?   

--
Jens Kieffer-Olsen
Slagelse, Denmark


> -----Original Message-----
> From: E.P. Grondine [mailto:epgrondine at hotmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 8:24 PM
> 
> Jens -
> 
> What juvenile romance does this come from? Does the hero 
> manage to get a kiss by the last page?
> 
> E.P.
> 
> >From: "Jens Kieffer-Olsen" <dstdba at post4.tele.dk>
> >Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:46:47 +0200
> >
> >  Nope!
> >
> >  The first space age started on June 5th, 2056 when man first
> >  stepped down on planet Mars.
> >
> >  The second space age started on Jan. 30th, 3089 when man took
> >  into possession the first Earth-like exoplanet just a handful
> >  of lightyears south of El Paso.
> >
> >  The third space age, well, the concepts of time and space as
> >  we know them fail to adequately portrait the circumstances of
> >  the epic trek that took a platoon of entrepreneurial souls down
> >  to planetary territory under Andromedan guardianship.