Space...the final government monopoly...

I admit it: I'm a frustrated astronaut. I grew up in the glory days of NASA, drawing spaceships when I should have been listening to my teacher. On my bookshelf is Pioneering in Space, a tome written just before Neil Armstrong took his "one small step" on the lunar surface. Back in those heady days, everyone thought we'd be in space, en force, by now.

Maybe the final hurdle wasn't gravity--it was bureaucracy. Sometimes the job is just too big for commercial success...but that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. At America's birth, the US Post Office was the only game in town, and they carved lines of communication in a vast wilderness. But eventually the Pony Express, FedEx, and UPS showed that competition spurs innovation and efficiency. Now the USPS seems more an expensive relic of a bygone era. NASA is traveling the same road. They mustered the resources to put us on the moon, then became "lost in space." Now a new breed of entrepreneur is trying to go where no industry has gone before.

I only hope I can afford a ticket before I shuttle off this mortal coil the other way.