The American adventure in space is at a crossroads. During a generation of unprecedented exploration, we sent humans to the moon, peered into deepest space to understand the dawn of the Universe, discovered new planets orbiting other stars, and sought abodes for life in our Solar System. But now the shuttering of the Space Shuttle program, the cost growth of space missions, and the squeeze on federal spending place NASA in peril. What do these developments mean for our future in the final frontier... and our own home? Will the US continue to lead the world in space? Should it?
What we now refer to as "development" really began in a systematic way after World War II. The victors had a variety of pressures to address, the most fearsome being the threat of yet another emerging conflict involving new applications of science and technology and even more deadly weaponry. Moreover, the relationship between the economic and social devastation of World War I and the rise of a fanatical régime in Germany was regarded as self-evident.