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Astronauts are asked to speak to groups ranging from the World War II pilots to Egg-and-Poultry Association, from college graduations to.....; when the Space Shuttle is ferried across the country on the back of a 747, tens of thousands of people come out to celebrate. 

NASA's current approach to the Space Program and Space Policy does little to kindle the imagination of the American public. Emphasis is no longer on space "exploration", but rather on space "exploitation". Space is being touted as the next industrial frontier, and the commercialization of space is heralded as the source of the next economic revolution. Unfortunately, industrialization and commercialization are concepts that capture the fiscal imagination of a far-sighted investor, but not the wistful imagination of a 10-year-old star-gazer. 

The Space Station is billed as "the next logical step" in our country's space program. But even the interjection of the word "logical" takes some of the gleam, some of the magic, from an orbital way-station. Now there's nothing wrong with being "logical" about our approach to the space program; and there's nothing wrong with encouraging private industry to tap the untold potential of the space environment. The early frontier explorers were followed by wagon trains and settlers, then by railroads and mining companies. This is the