Exploration Team

Exploration Team

By Murray Leinster

The nearer moon went by overhead. It was jagged and irregular in shape, and was probably a captured asteroid. Huyghens has seen it often enough, so he did not go out of his quarters to watch it hurtle across the sky, with seemingly the speed of an atmosphere-flier, occulting the stars as it went. Instead, he sweated over paper work, which should have been odd because he was technically a felon and all his labors on Loren Two felonious. It was odd, too, for a man to do paper work in a room with steel shutters and a huge bald eagle – untethered – dozing on a three-inch perch set in the wall. But paper work was not Huyghens' real task. His only assistant had tangled with a night-walker and the furtive Kodius Company ships had taken him away to where Kodius Company ships came from. Huyghens had to do two men's work in Loneliness. To his knowledge, he was the only man in this solar system.

Below him, there were snufflings. Sitka Pete got up heavily and padded to his water pan. He lapped the refrigerated water and sneezed violently. Sourdough Charley waked and complained in a rumbling growl. There were divers other rumblings and mutterings below. Huyghens called reassuringly, “Easy there!” and went on with his work. He finished a climate report, and fed figures to a computer, and while it hummed over them he entered the inventory totals in the station log, showing what supplies remained. Then he began to write up the log proper.

“Sitka Pete,” he wrote, “has apparently solved the problem of killing individual sphexes. He has learned that it doesn't do to hug them and that his claws can't penetrate their hide – not the top hide, anyhow. Today Semper notified us that a pack of sphexes had found the scent-trail to the station. Sitka hid down-wind until they arrived. Then he charged from the rear and brought his paws together on both sides of a sphex's head in a rear and brought his paws together on both sides of sphex's head in a terrific pair of slaps. It must have been like two twelve-inch shells arriving from opposite directions at the same time. It must have scrambled the sphex's brains as if they were eggs. It dropped dead. He killed two more with such mighty pairs o wallops. Sourdough Charley watched, grunting, and when the sphexes turned on Sitka, he charged in his turn. I, of course, couldn't shoot too close to him, so he might have fared fared badly but that Faro Nell came pouring out of the bear quarters to help. The diversion enabled Sitka Pete to resume the use of his new technique, towering on his hind legs and swinging his paws in the new and grisly fashion. The fight ended promptly. Semper flew and screamed above the scrap, but as usual did not join in. Note: Nugger, the cub, tried to mix in but his mother cuffed him out of the way. Sourdough and Sitka ignored him as usual. Kodius Champion's genes are sound.”

Sphexes, colonist and bears. Photo by Elena.

Allamagoosa

Allamagoosa

By Eric Frank Russell

It was a long time since the Bustler had been so silent. She lay in the Sirian spaceport, her tubes cold, her shell particle-scarred, her air that of a long distance runner exhausted at the end of a marathon. There was good reason for this: she had returned from a lengthy trip by no means devoid of troubles.

Now, in port, well-deserved rest had been gained if only temporarily. Peace, sweet peace. No more bothers, no more crises, no more major upsets, mo more dire predicaments such as crop up in free flight at least twice a day. Just peace.

Hah!

Captain McNaught reposed in his cabin, feet up on desk, and enjoyed the relaxation to the utmost. The engines were dead, the hellish pounding absent for the first time in months. Out there in the big city four hundred of his crew were making whoopee under a brilliant sun. This evening, when First Officer Gregory returned to take charge, he was going to go into the fragrant twilight and make the rounds of neon-lit civilization.

That was the beauty of making landfall at long last. Men could give way to themselves, blow off surplus steam, each according to his fashion. No duties, no worries, no dangers, no responsibilities in spaceport. A haven of safety and comfort for tired rovers.

Again, hah!

Barbam, the chief radio officer, entered the cabin. He was one of the half-dozen remaining on duty and bore the expression of a man who can think of twenty better things to do.

“Relayed signal just come in, sir.” Handing the paper across, he waited for the other to look at it and perhaps dictate a reply.

Taking the sheet, McNaught removed the feet from his desk, sat erect and read the message aloud.

Terran Headquarters to Bustler, Remain Siriport pending further orders. Rear Admiral Vane W. Cassidy due there seventeenth. Feldman. Navy Op. Command, Sirisec.

Allamagoosa. Photo by Elena.

He looked up, all happiness gone from his leathery features, and groaned.

“Something wrong?” asked Burman, vaguely alarmed.

McNaught pointed at three thin books on his desk. “The middle one. Page twenty.”

Leafing through it, Burman found an item and said: Vane W. Cassidy, R-Ad. Head Inspector Ships and Stores.

Burman swallowed hard. “Does that mean -?”

“Yes, it does,” said McNaught without pleasure. “Back to training-college and all its rigmarole. Paint and soap, spit and polish.” He put on an officious expression, adopted a voice to match it. “Captain, you have only seven ninety-nine emergency rations. Your allocation is eight hundred. Nothing in your log-book accounts for the missing one. Where is it? What happened to it? How is it that one of the men's kit lacks an officially issued pair of suspenders? Did you report his loss? 

“Why does he pick on us?” asked Burman, appalled. “He's never chivvied us before.”

“That's why,” informed McNaught, scowling at the wall, “It's our turn to be stretched across the barrel.” His gaze found the calendar. “We have three days – and we'll need 'em! Tell Second Officer Pike to come here at once.”

Burman departed gloomily. In short time Pike entered. His face reaffirmed the old adage that bad news travels fast.

Assigned Residence

Location: Assigned residence, Etyakt region

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

I'm a scientist. I find beauty in absolutes. I love the clarity of math, its unwavering dependability. Math will never say one thing and do another one. It will never harm you on purpose because its only purpose is truth. On Esat Ekt, I found that same clarity, that perspicuity, that is so lacking in people on Earth. I found it not because it was there but because I was searching for it. I saw faces in the clouds. I found what I was looking for here because I brought it with me. I know that now. I also know I'm a hypocrite. I marveled at their idealism, applauded them for not wanting to share knowledge with us, but but I lied to them to get the, to teach me. I lied to them to try to save Eugene. I admired their principles so long as the didn't apply to me.

Eugene passed away last night, and when he did, there was nothing gained, nothing achieved. He just died. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't mean anything. The universe will go on without him as it would have with him. The Ekt will see his death as nature following its course. They won't pat themselves on the back for letting him die. There is no malice in them. They watched Eugene die with humility and respect, like we watch the leaves turn to red in the fall. They choose to see the world in a way that gives their life meaning. They choose. It is a choice.

Assigned residence. Picture by Elena.

What do I choose?

There was a church across from my apartment in Chicago. In the summer, I would watch through the window while grooms greeted their guests at the door. I watched newlyweds leave while everyone cheered. Some left me indifferent and lost my interest before they made it down the steps. Some didn't. The way they smiled or looked at each other. That ignorant bliss, or the moment of doubt when they thought, and I wished with all my heart it would be a good one. It felt... intimate somehow, sharing theses precious moments with complete strangers. But it wasn't. I watched through the window. It never occurred to me to get out of my apartment and wish them luck in person. It would have been presumptuous. It was their wedding. I wasn't invited, and I didn't want to be.

That is the way of the Ekt. I only now truly understand it. They watch other worlds through a window. Eugene's death was unfortunate – the bride falling down the stairs – but it wasn't their place to save him. It would have been presumptuous. I can't bring myself to hate him. There is a certain nobility to the way they look at things. Only this time, I was there. I was invited. I couldn't watch my friend die because there was no window to watch it through, and I couldn't bear the reality of it. I lost my friend. I hurt, and that hurt is as real as anything I've seen or touched. There is no objectivity. Everything is perspective.

Great Temples

Great Temples

The world beyond

Many pharaohs temples to be constructed for themselves as well as for the gods. Some of the temples were attached to pharaohs' tombs, erected in separate places or added to other buildings such as the one at Karnak. Temple complexes included huge statues, soaring columns, school rooms, storehouses and workshops, and spacious gardens. By the time Ramesses II came to power in 1290 B.C., many magnificent monuments had already been built throughout ancient Egypt. He added several others during his reign of more than 60 years. The most impressive one was at Abu Simbel in the Nubian desert. The laborers chipped away the side of a hill to make the south front and then hollowed out a vast space behind it for the Interior. Hatshepsut, Amenophis III, Sethos I and Ramesses III were also great temple builders. 

The colossi of Memnon: Two colossal stone statues are all that remain of Amenophis III's monument on the Nile's west bank.

The temple of Hatshepsut: Hatshepsut ordered her great temple to be built on the west bank of the Nile. Sloping ramps connected terraces that jutted out from the rocky backdrop on three levels. Bu the end of the nineteenth century, little remained except a pile of rubble and sand.

Colored Columns: The temple of the goddess Isis stands on the island of Philae. When this lithograph was made in 1846, some color still remained on the columns in the hall.

On a grand scale: Massive granite statues of Ramesses II stood inside and outside his temple at Abu Simbel. A single foot was taller than an adult. Shallow reliefs, carved on the north and south walls, record Ramesses II's battle victories.

Did you know? Twice a year, the shadow interior of Ramesses II's temple is pierced by the rays of the rising sun, which illuminate the four statues in the temple's sanctuary.

Rescuing Abu Simbel: When the Aswan Dam was built across the River Nile in the 1960s, it created Lake Nasser. Many of the Nubian temples were moved to prevent them from being flooded.

Egyptian God. Photo by Elena.

Faith as the Basis for Freedom

Faith as the Foundational Basis for Freedom

Excerpt from Trump's America by New Gingrich

Make no mistake, the Founding Fathers viewed religious liberty and faith as the basis for all our individual freedoms.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson cited “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God” as the authority under which Americans had the right to claim autonomy from England. He went on to write “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

The statement serves as the cornerstone of our individual liberties because it recognizes that our Creator is the ultimate authority over any government of human beings, and that we receive our rights from our Creator – not our government.

As Founder Alexander Hamilton wrote in February 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence was ratified. “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

These words from one of our Founders show that religious freedom was not some vague notion meant to simply ensure people had the ability to attend the church of their choice – or to choose not to attend religious services. The idea – the dictum – that government lacked the authority to infringe on fundamental rights was unique and vital to America's founding.

The Founders believed this so thoroughly that according to Founder Samuel Adams, people didn't even have to ability to surrender their own rights. In a paper Adams wrote concerning the rights of colonists in November 1772, he said, “If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.”

Faith. Photo by Elena.

… Chiefly, the secular elites point to Thomas Jefferson''s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in which he wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State”.

However, the separation Jefferson referenced stressed government's inability to regulate religion. It was not intended to be a blanket prohibition against public religious activities. In fact, two days after writing the Church and State letter, Jefferson attended religious services at the United States Capitol. The service was led by Baptist Minister John Leland, who was himself a key helper to James Madison with the inclusion of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. 

In fact, Jefferson and the other Founders believed religion was the principle source of morality – and morality was essential for a free society. They included the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment because there was a healthy and diverse religious community guiding America – and they wanted it to continue to grow unhindered by government.

Fight for Trump's America

The Fight for Trump's America

Trump's America: The Truth About America's Great Comeback by Newt Ginbrich

America is in the midst of a cultural-political civil war – a fight over our very identity as a people.

For decades, this conflict has been fought quietly in city halls, classrooms, school boards, courtrooms, town squares, and states houses across the country. However, the election of President Trump has clarified the battle lines in this struggle and elevated these individual fights into a united national conflict.

On one side of this conflict is a factional anti-Trump coalition – strange amalgam of radicals, liberals, globalists, establishment elites from both parties, and blatantly anti-American groups loosely held together y their hostility to and disdains for the president. On the other side is Trump's America – the millions of hardworking people who are united by respect for our foundational freedoms, traditional values, and history of limited commonsense governance.

Before the president rallied Trump's America and gave us a national voice, the various groups that would eventually form the anti-Trump coalition were winning on their own. For decades, they have meticulously undermined our traditions through politics and courts, entertainment and news media, and liberal schools and curriculum to quietly impose new worldviews on everyday Americans that are counter to our historic principles.

However, the tide turned after the 2016 presidential elections.

Here's the truth the mainstream media is hiding from you: Today, Trump's America is winning.

Sakura blossom. Photo by Elena.

Under President Trump, America is experiencing a great comeback. After nearly a decade of recession tepid job creation, our economy is booming. In addition, ISIS has been effectively destroyed, illegal immigration is down, our military is being rebuilt, and our veterans are getting the health care and support they deserve. The administration is achieving success across a variety of sectors daily.

Perhaps more important than these successes, however, is the reinvigoration of America's patriotic sense of self, which the rise of Donald Trump has awakened. Our country is being reconnected to our founding principles, the values that made America the greatest country in the world, and in doing so, is coming to understand just how destructive the last few decades of elite leadership have been to our freedom, prosperity, and safety.

Of course, the anti-Trump coalition is in complete denial about America's comeback under Trump. For them, it is incomprehensible that someone like President Trump, and the tens of millions of so-called deplorables who fervently support him, could be on the verge of reclaiming America.

Because the news media is fully a part of the anti-Trump coalition, its members will not accurately report what is happening in America under President Trump.

This is a major reason why I wrote this book.

Trump's America: The Truth About America's Great Comeback is intended as a resource for Americans who want the truth about the significant accomplishments President Trump has achieved in his first year-and-a-half in office.

It is also an attempt to describe the nature of the cultural-political conflict we are in and vividly explain the differences in values and principles between Trump's America and those who oppose it.

Covert Recordings

Covert Recordings

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel (excerpt)

File No. 2197 – News Report - Miranda Patel, BBC

Location: London, UK.

London is in chaos. Approximately twenty minutes ago, an all-too-familiar giant robot appeared in Regent's Park, mere steps away from the memorial honoring the victims of the first  alien attack nearly two decades ago. Moments later, two more materialized side by side in Trafalgar Square. While Londoners remained surprisingly calm in our previous encounters with the aliens, they are showing no such composure this time around. Mass panic has set in. There is looting across town. All the major roads are blocked. There have already been dozens of casualties, people trampled trying to evacuate their offices, vehicles plowing through crowds. The city has issued a statement asking people to stay in their homes and avoid the streets, bu the memory of those thousands of bodies lying on the pavements is still fresh in the minds of Londoners, and most will do anything to escape the - 

I am just told that more of these giant killers, a lot more, have appeared... everywhere. Reports continue to come in as we... It appears we are witnessing a full-scale alien invasion. New York, Washington. We are getting images from Washington now. There are four, no, five robots surrounding the White House.

Back to the UK, while Londoners are on the run, it is unclear where they can run to. We have a preliminary list of cities where metal giants have been spotted. Here we go: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Derby, Doncaster, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchaster, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North Lanarkshire, Nottingham, Rotherham, Salford, Sheffield, Stockport, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, and York. As I said, this list is preliminary. We are getting continuous reports from... This is a picture of the Stockton Cricket Club in Stockton-on-Tees. As you can see, there seems to be nowhere to hide.

Sudden attack. Photo by Elena.

So far, no sign of the deadly gas that killed tens of millions. The aliens have not made their intentions known, but the sheer number of robots would indicate they are not on a mission of peace. Whatever their objective is, it would appear they will achieve it without resistance on anyone's part, as no state has darted to challenge the invader. It should come as no surprise since our last attempt at a military response right here in London had nothing but cataclysmic consequences. I believe I speak for anyone who has seen the crater that once was Madrid when I say that we should...

I am in shock. It has been only a few minutes, but already, the United States, and now the UK, have signalled their unconditional surrender to the aliens. Whether their message has been heard and understood remains to be seen, but – More reports of surrender. China – we do not have video at this time, but there are apparently over two hundred robots in China alone – China has just joined the growing list of countries to lay down their arms. We should hear from Her Majesty's Government on that subject shortly. I suspect the American capitulation will have a domino effect on other nations as well.

We can see – This is central London from above, and we can see smokestacks everywhere. There are fires erupting throughout the city. I am urging everyone to stay inside until the streets are safe again.

Only Human

Only Human

By Sylvain Neuvel (excerpt)

File No. EE955 – personal file from Esat Ekt

Personal Journal Entry – Dr. Rose Franklin

Be careful what you wish for.

About ten years ago – I was thirty-seven at the time – a giant robot from another planet visited Earth and decimated part of London. We succeeded in destroying it, but thirteen more appeared and dispersed a genetically engineered gaseous weapon in two does of our most populous cities. One hundred million people died on the process. Among them, this mysterious man whose name I never learned, who steered our every move ever since I was put in charge of studying that giant hand at the University of Chicago, and Kara Resnik, my best friend, who was also Vincent's wife, and Eva's biological mother.

With some help, I found a way to alter the metal these robots were made of at the molecular level and disabled one of them. That was enough to convince the aliens to leave.

I can't say that I knew that was going to happen, that millions would die because I had discovered Themis and brought attention to our planet, but I was afraid it would. I was afraid ever since I was brought back to life. I felt... out of place, and I wished that whoever built Themis would come back and take her away. I also said I hoped they would take me with them.

They did. After the alien robots left Earth, General Eugene Govender, head of the EDC, Vincent, Eva, and I went aboard Themis to celebrate our – I was going to say victory, but that's not what it was – survival. While we were there, the Council of Akitast – the group of aliens who decide how their world deals with others – had Themis brought back. She dematerialized on Earth and reappeared on Themis's home planet, with the four of us inside.

Only Human. Photo by Elena.

They call it Esat Ekt – Home of the Ekt, their people. In some small way, they're also our people. The Ekt first came to Earth some five thousand years ago – twenty-four of them or so. They were among us for a couple of millenia. They were ordered never to interfere, to stay out of history's way, but over time., some of them frayed and joined the natives. They had children – half-human, half-alien – who in turn had children – three-quarter human – and so on, until their descendants, indistinguishable from humans, had but a tin bit of alien genetics left in them. Three thousand years later, there was nothing left in them. Three thousand years later, there was nothing left to distinguish them from. All of us, every single person on Earth, were related, however remotely, with the handful of aliens who chose love over duty, back when the Titans walked the Earth.

We have been living here on Esat Ekt for nine years now, but we are still very much outsiders. Their entire society is built on the idea that different species shouldn't interact in ways that can affect them, that each should be left to evolve according to its own set of values. Centuries ago, their kind was nearly decimated by the inhabitants of a planet their emperor had displaced, exiled for personal or political raisons. After that, they replaced their monarchy with a very complex democracy, and took their noninterference policy to a whole new level. To the Ekt,”polluting” an entire species with their genetics means robbing them of the future they should have. They view this as we would genocide.

Freedom of Religion

Freedom of Religion

Excerpt from Trump's America by New Gingrich

In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for teachers, principals, or other educators to lead prier in public schools. In 1980, the court barred schools from displaying the Ten Commandments on campus. Since these cases, courts have gone further. The high court said in 1985 that even a moment of silence could potentially unconstitutional, and in 1989, it ruled that nativity scenes celebrating Christmas in government buildings were unlawful.

In 2002, a federal court even ruled that the phrase « under God » in the Pledge of Allegiance ran afoul of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause – which prohibits the federal government from establishing an official religion. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling, but the justices stopped short of clarifying that this phrase is in fact constitutional. This is profoundly troubling, after all, the official motto of the nation is still In God We Trust.

In addition to the courts, some associations have also waged a wide-ranging cultural campaign that impacts every aspect of American society. The First Liberty Institute documented 1,400 attacks on religion in America in 2017. The Institute's “Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America” looks at instances of religious hostility across four categories: the public arena, which includes government, workplaces, markets, and other public spaces; the schoolhouse, which includes K-12 and collegiate institutions; attacks against places or worship by local communities, and local, state, and federal governments; and religious attacks within the military. The Institute reports that instances of religious intolerance increased by 15 percent since 2016 – and 133 percent over the last five years.

St-Joseph Cathedral. Photo by Elena.

Some of these attacks include companies that have been threatened with consequences by government for refusing to provide insurance coverage for contraception or abortion drugs and procedures. In one example cited by the Institute, elderly Americans at a senior citizens' center were told they could not pray, listen to religious messages, or sing religious songs because of religious persecution, a high school football coach was fired for praying alone on the field after a football game, and a Navy chaplain was investigated for counseling his fellow seamen according to his religious beliefs.

More and more often, we are seeing the First Amendment, which was written to protect our freedom to practice religion, misused as a tool to strip religion out of our public lives. Not only is this push for a religion of public secularism a departure from the historic American approach to faith, it is a threat to our liberty and the principles on which our country was founded.

The Founding Fathers regularly – and intentionally – engaged in public religious observances, and they knew that faith was vital to our country's survival. They understood that religious freedom underpinned all our other liberties and provided an important limit to the federal government's reach into our lives. We must recognize that religious rights in our country have been diminished over the years and the country must work to restore these rights. America is strongest and most successful when its people are free to live and worship as they wish.

This is why the freedom of religion is an essential pillar of America and a key to the American comeback.

Reaching Beyond the Stars

Reaching Beyond the Stars

Excerpt from Trump's America by New Gingrich

Perhaps more than any other initiative, President Trump's commitment to revive American leadership in space will have enormous, long-lasting outcomes that will help ensure the United States remains a global superpower for decades to come. Even more importantly, if the Trump administration can build on the emerging commercial launch systems Americans will lead people throughout the solar system and freedom will be the banner of space travel....

Thinking big and achieving big in American space exploration and commercialization will require a lot more drive, mental toughness, and determined implementation than anything we have seen in space since the Apollo program, which put us on the moon.

Unfortunately, the speed, creativity, risk-taking, and technological and managerial innovation born out of the Apollo period from 1961 to 1969 has been replaced by bureaucracies, lobbyists, entrenched old systems, and narrowly defined ways of thinking and measuring success.

Many of these old bureaucracies, old systems, and old interest groups are working overtime to redefine their activities to fit the Trump-Pence vision. In other words, they are trying to put new point jobs on 50-year-old cars and pitching them as new.

If the old guard succeeds, we will have another eight years of rope-a-dope with slow moving, expensive, safe bureaucratic activities that achieve very little.

Real change in American space activities will be controversial. It will stir up opposition from entrenched bureaucracies, large corporations, and congressional pork barrel vested interests. If you don't see or hear about this resistance, you can assumed it is because the old guard has successfully minimized the amount of change coming, and instead of thinking big, we are acting small.

Space program! Photo by Elena.

Meeting the Trump-Pence Standard

At the first meeting of the National Space Council, Vice President Pence outlined the following clear goals based on President Trump's directive:

1. Refocus America's space program toward human exploration and discovery – launching American astronauts beyond low-earth orbit for the fist time since 1972;

2. Establishing a renewed American presence on the moon to build a foundational system for space activities beyond earth's reach. The moon will be a stepping-stone, a training ground, a venue to strengthen our commercial and international partnerships as we refocus America's space program toward human space exploration;

3. From the moon as a foundation, America will be the first to bring mankind to Mars;

4. Renew America's commitment to creating the space technology to protect national security. America must be as dominant in space as it is on earth;

5. Promote regulatory, technological, and educational reforms to expand opportunities for American citizens and ensure that the U.S. Is at the forefront of economic development in outer space;

6. American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-earth orbit expanding the economy beyond the planet. We'll strengthen our economy, as we unlock new opportunities, new technologies, and new sources of prosperity;

7. We'll inspire our children to seek education in science, technology, engineering, and math.

8. Our nation will bring American values to this infinite frontier. We will renew the American spirit itself and rekindle our belief that America can accomplish anything.

If we insist on the scale of change these eight goals will require, we will have an amazingly dynamic and popular program in space by 2020. Furthermore, we will be poised to make even greater leaps during a second Trump-Pence administration.

A major key to succeeding in this effort is recognizing this level of advancement is vastly more complex than the Apollo program. Apollo was an engineering project with the full force of political-governmental support that could be managed by a bureaucracy with adequate resources. The Trump-Pence goals, on the other hand, require a series of cultural, political, economic, and technological changes that transcend any single bureaucracy or manageable, measurable system.

This new system requires fundamental shifts in virtually every current space-focused activity in our society.

Reaching beyond the stars. Illustration by Elena.

Net Worth

Net Worth

From I Love Capitalism – An American Story by Ken Langone, cofounder of The Home Depot.

When I was ten years old, I was an altar boy at St.Mary's Church in Roslyn, just across the harbor from the sand pits. The priest, Father Francis Ryan – Father Frank – came from Ireland, spoke with a brogue, and had a boxer's nose: he really had been a boxer. Does it sound like a Spencer Tracy movie yet?

I've always been spiritual, and I loved being an altar boy. The hours were challenging, though. When it was my turn to serve the 6:30 Mass for the week, I had to get up at six every morning from Monday until Saturday and walk about a mile to a spot underneath the railroad bridge at Roslyn Road, where Mr. Harnett, the church sexton, would pick me up in his little Ford Model A and drive me the remaining two miles to St. Mary's. I remember the smell of the pipe Mr. Harnett smoked and the fragrance of the inside of the church, a combination of incense and the wood of the pews and the bindings of the hymnals.

Weekdays I'd serve Mass, then walk back up the hill and go to school. But on Saturdays I had to walk all the way home – three miles. Once I took a ride from my uncle Pat, my father's oldest brother, and his wife, my aunt Agnes. My aunt scolded me the whole way about why my mother and father didn't go to church. I never took a ride from the again.

Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Graffiti. Photo by Elena.

I've always felt that some of the worst people in the world go to Mass regularly, while some of the best people in the world never set foot in church. I attend Mass every Sunday, and try to make daily Mass as often as I can. I have a routine every morning: I get up and brush my teeth and, still in my pajamas, go off in a quite corner of the house for twenty minutes with my Bible and a Bible study guide and pray.

I don't know if there's a God or if there's a heaven; I can't prove it, but that's what I believe. There's one part of me that thinks, when you're dead, you're dead. You had your shot; move on. But if there isn't a God, what have I lost by praying? Nothing. It's a no-downside bet.

The first part of my prayer is that when I'm presented for my judgment, our Creator will have concluded that for the most part I've lived my life according to His teachings, and Scripture. I then ask that in the hereafter I'll be reunited with all those people I loved and admired who left before me. I then pray for those who have lost loved ones or have problems: people I can help. I say, “God, let me always do it for your praise, honor, and glory – not mine.”

I know spiritually isn't for everybody, but for me it's been an incredibly motivating factor. God is the most important parе of everything I do.