I was beginning to wonder, because I'm 44 now and the whole space program was dead in the water. We could do it five years from now if the will was there. My feeling is that this week's news is going to drive us in a way we've never been driven before. Even if you explain it's like bathtub scum, it becomes vastly more interesting. You obviously keep up with science.
Scientists are mad speculators already.
I find them mostly disenchanted with science fiction for being too loose and frivolous, and not really doing its homework. Yet they still keep up with it, hoping that they run into something that they like. But I found that people love that kind of stuff. The novel is such a wonderful form that it can handle tons of all kinds of disparate information and still be a novel. Moby Dick should have taught us that.