We can figure out the hardware. We can conquer the human factors hurdles. But to do it we have to galvanize the public, make it tangible for them, ignite their passion. Then the next time a Congressman is tempted to make political hay by ripping into the NASA budget, he or she may have to think twice. If we get the groundswell going, the politicians will lose the courage to be negative, which is probably the best we can hope for.
Times are different.
We can't wait hopefully for a John F. Kennedy to come along and whip congress into a lather. It makes me want to vomit frankly. Check back in five hundred or a thousand years. People will still be talking about all the problems that need to be solved. We are never going to reach some utopian plateau where everything is solved so we can then, with lordly confidence, look around us for worlds to conquer as some kind of hobby.