This past week I was tabling for UCF’s chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) at one of the many events sponsored by the university to introduce incoming students to the myriad organizations and opportunities for involvement. Believe it or not, it’s actually my favorite part of being in SEDS and on Earthrise’s Google Lunar X PRIZE team: more than launching rockets or designing lunar rovers, I truly enjoy being out among the people, meeting them, talking with them one-on-one, and sharing my passion with them to get them excited about a cause I believe in with all my heart. You see, there are many here in Florida who are concerned about the future of spaceflight—and it’s not just because, for some of us, our employment upon graduating depends on it (though that does figure in to things). Every single person I converse with, regardless of their chosen field of study, without exception understands and grasps the importance of bringing light to the pitch-black frontier. It never matters whether they’re engineers that can do differential equations in their sleep, or come from non-technical backgrounds like hospitality or journalism, they just GET IT all the same. I kid you not, you can see the moment as it happens in their eyes. Naturally, these people are disheartened at the shuttle’s coming retirement (Atlantis will be mothballed at the end of this year, the others the year following). Say what you will as to whether the Space Shuttle is entirely dependable, or obsolete and unsafe—the fact of the matter is, it will be a long, long time before we are ever blessed with a ship quite like her again. This is why I love my job: I get to tell everyone “the Good News” as it were, that the wonderful story of our adventure across the stars does not have to end there, regardless of whether NASA builds a replacement. Why? It’s because our generation is cursed. Some years back, I sat in on a lecture by Jim Muncy, who started PoliSpace as a means of providing policy consultation services to private space firms. Jim possesses a truly fascinating mind, and his insight never fails to be both illuminating and thought-provoking. Around the time I first met him, he had started passing along a Chinese curse whenever he addressed college students: “May you live in interesting times”. There was no way we could have known then just how quickly that would come to pass. As one of the more renowned educators of our generation has been known to say, “Consider the following”: • Virgin Galactic, the spaceliner born of the Ansari X PRIZE, has signed a lease agreement with New Mexico to build history’s first commercial spaceport. • The owner of a nationwide chain of hotels has begun construction of the first hotel in space—the first component of which is orbiting above your head right now. • One of the men behind a two-time Indy 500 race winner is now bringing a new, adrenaline-pumped sport to the world. It’s called Rocket Racing, and will put NASCAR to shame as rocket-powered aircraft scream through a mid-air “track” like bats out of you-know-where with a 15’ flame shooting out the back end. Let’s not forget US—how could I or anyone else have foreseen the new X Prize, where ordinary people without college degrees can (and will) execute their own mission to the lunar surface? We are cursed, indeed. Speaking of us, right now we’re re-evaluating our power budget. In the temperature extremes present in vacuous space, we’ll have to carefully ration our juice if we’re going to keep the rover within a safe thermal envelope and have enough left over to boost a high-definition video all the way back to Earth. In the meantime, I’ll be doing what I love doing best: Spreading the curse. Carpe Astra, --Jeff