In the face of fear and adversity

50 years ago today, Yuri Gagarin slipped the surly bonds of Earth and became the first human being in space. On that day in 1961 it seemed like space was a future looming bright and mysterious ahead of us, now 5 decades later it's as if space is something we've left behind. With the future of manned space flight in doubt with the retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet and constant de-funding of the space program, it would seem that space has once again become an unattainable goal or at least for those holding the purse strings, an undesirable one. It's at times like this that I'm reminded of this excerpt from the foreword Warren Ellis wrote for his and Colleen Doran's graphic novel "Orbiter":

"This is a book about returning to space in the face of fear and adversity. It's a book about glory. About going back to space, because it's waiting for us and it's where we're meant to be. We can't allow human space exploration to become our history."