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In Robert Heinlein's short story collection, we get to read about a future history that never happened, where the Solar System is colonized by a bunch of ambitious, optimistic, happy-go-lucky space entrepreneurs. They cut corners, break the rules, and quite often get themselves killed. But it works. The American dream reaches the stars, or at least the planets.

In the real world, manned space-flight reached its peak around 1970 with the Apollo landings and then stagnated. Reagan went into the blind alley of building the Space Station, ignoring all his science advisers. Under Dubya, the US had a goal to repeat Apollo (more or less) by 2020, but funding has been cut and it's almost certainly not going to happen. No one at NASA is surprised. I made a bet about four years ago with a senior manager there that someone would set foot on the Moon again by the end of the present decade. He said he hated to be so blunt, but he'd already decided how to spend my money.

So here's the odd thing. The only manned space program which ended up looking the least bit like Heinlein's vision was the Soviet one. They had totally inadequate money and took a lot of risks, but they are still keeping it going. The US program became mired in a vast, inefficient government bureaucracy, and is slowly thrashing itself to death. Things are so bad that the US will soon have to rely entirely on Russian spacecraft to provide transport to the Space Station, unless there's a last-minute change of plan and the Shuttle is not retired next year.

However could that have happened? I really don't blame Heinlein for getting it wrong, and if any SF writer managed to call it correctly I tip my space helmet to him.
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Do you know, I think I spoke too soon. There are suddenly intriguing rumours about "Hundred Year Starship", a one-way trip to Mars which may be partly or even wholly funded by super-rich entrepreneurs. For example, check out this recent article.