Look for the man with the biggest...wand?

Yeah, that did sound slightly familiar...

Are you sure you don't mean 'Sean?'

Isaac Asimov one did an essay on this topic, 'Variates of the Infinite."

This isn't much, but I have a rough memory of a woman about 20 feet from Iron Man, holding a gun, to her own head:

"The Shuttle program was, pretty much, a failure."

Britain's Kettering Grammar School has been doing it for almost as long as satellites themselves have been possible:

You don't need a retrievable, winged vehicle to do that.

Take another look at 'The Fifth Element,' and be careful what you wish for...

And the response from the DoD would essentially be; "Why? That's not our job."

Well...'deep space' is a relative term. Beyond perhaps LEO, it can mean almost anything you want it to mean.

Also consider this as you choose...

"Considering it took the US ten years and 11 tries to actually land someone on the moon, I wouldn't worry too much about the Chinese launching a giant rocket tomorrow. "

"So if you want to see NASA get more funding, pick your candidate now, based on their respective stances on space exploration. "

...And that's the first thing we need to change. Find and encourage such markets, and it'll do more for us in the long run than 'racing' China, or anyone else.

Perhaps not crazy, just irrelevant. Not going to happen.

"All this talk of "left behind" is just to fabricate ANOTHER exterior enemy, so the US can put the passion and energy at hating "them/the others", rather than focusing on the problems at home. "