I like the idea of a "buy in" moment, though it is quite difficult to pin down and obviously varies from person to person. But I've definitely had the experience of playing a game that feels like it should be good, but which I've never personally been able to sell myself on. Zelda, for example.

You know... I kind of wish more immensely rich filmmakers were like Cameron. I'm not his biggest fan so far as movies go, but I can't help but admire his pioneering spirit.

I'm actually kind of surprised American Airlines is still in business. I thought they'd been hurt bad by the double-whammy of the recession and before the post-9/11 airline crash.

Eh, say what you will about Star Trek 09 (it certainly lacks some of the complexity endemic to 80s or 90s Trek) but it's not all that similar to Lost or Fringe.

I'd love to see more RDM written Star Trek because, as the above commenter says, he was quite good at it. But RDM has personally said he's not all that interested in returning to the franchise, given some of the bad memories he has associated with the later years and the simple fact that he's moved on emotionally.

"Paramount loved the Star Trek movies because they could make them for dirt cheap (Khan actually started out as a TV movie), and release them early in the summer or between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when there'd be a ton of kids just out of school and most of the other major releases hadn't come out yet."

Over-saturation probably played a part, though it's worth noting that First Contact was highly profitable, even though it was running side-by-side with DS9 and Voyager.

You get a lot of your points right, but Origin actually does host non-EA games now, like Arkham City.

Oh boy, another "I am play gods!" movie!

I consider war is a possible consequence... but not until after we've made significant inroads in colonization. That's what I said.

I'd kind of prefer if we could have both. Why is it necessary that private industry preclude public investment (or vice versa)?

Yeah, I kind of expect that as well at this point. It seems like eccentric billionaires are the greatest potential source for breakthroughs at this point.

Two problems with that logic.

It seems to me that some smart people (perhaps in China) will get the idea in their head to charter corporations to do their space exploration and colonization for them. Something along the lines of the Hudson Bay or East India Companies, for example.

Define "wildly popular."

On the other hand, almost no one knew about the Viking discovery of North America. Even the Vikings weren't really aware of the significance the new land they'd found indicated.

I actually wouldn't mind corporately driven colonization if that's what it takes, but I'd prefer there to be a strong publicly funded drive (or at least both).

That's reasonable enough and I was initially going to post something similar before I decided to take a different track. I think it's a bit of nonsense to say "forever" but I think it may well be fair to say that if the U.S. doesn't become invested in space colonization within 50 years, that it probably won't at any…

You know what I think? I think the Space Treaty is one of the biggest obstacles to manned space exploration.

Graaah! That does weird things to my brain.