No more small steps, let alone giant leaps?

IN 2004, when President George W. Bush announced plans to send humans back to the moon and then onto Mars, many seasoned observers dismissed his words as empty rhetoric. Sadly, they now appear to have been right: at current funding levels, a US return to the moon – let alone the conquest of Mars – is pie in the sky (see “NASA review reveals agency’s dire straits”). With the last moonshot 37 years ago and the survivors of the Apollo programme dwindling, human space exploration may be heading for a place few expected it to boldly go: the history books.