I don't share your gloomy view. The annual rate of orbital space launches has been steadily climbing since 2000 and is now double what it was then. It's still s

I don't share your gloomy view. The annual rate of orbital space launches has been steadily climbing since 2000 and is now double what it was then. It's still slightly below the peak of the 1960s-70s but I'm pretty optimistic based on the clear trend. http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html Men on the moon was just a gimmick. I'm pretty excited by all the stuff we keep sending to Mars. There's another rover landing there in just a few weeks' time. It's not just NASA and SpaceX. We've recently seen Israel go to the Moon, Europe and India go to Mars, Japan return samples from an asteroid, and China return samples from the Moon. Who knows what one of them will do next. The only value I see in having people on the Moon or Mars is in working towards a permanent colony that could eventually become self-sufficient. Anything less and what's the point? We have robots to do almost all the stuff humans used to be needed for.