Time to move out of the nest

It would appear that hero of mine, Steven Hawking and I share at least one belief. The belief that mankind not only should, but must strike out into space. Regardless of your political affiliation and your beliefs on subjects like global warming; it has to be clear that we are outgrowing the pot we've been planted in. Further we are taking a risk as a species by carrying all of our eggs in one basket. Should a global calamity strike the Earth, if we do not have redundant populations elsewhere, we will go the way of the dinosaur. In the 1960's mankind strove to reach the moon and succeeded, but once that goal was attained we rested on our laurels and allowed machines to be the pioneers for our race. We kept our manned missions safely in near-Earth orbit and did not venture out of mother Earth's shadow again. It wasn't that we weren't technically capable of achieving such feats again. To the contrary, the technology that got our men to the Moon is archaic at best by today's standards. It was simply complacency... Laziness. There was no more space-race to win. We as a nation won it, so failing competition as an impetus we became complacent. There is hope however. President Bush's new directives to NASA have made a Moon base and manned mission to Mars a priority once again. High profile personalities like Steven Hawking are coming out to address the subject. Perhaps we as a species will finally wake from our complacency and strive to evolve into a spacefaring race. I however refuse to hold my breath. People are simply too short-sighted to see the need until the need is urgent. President Bush's bold new direction for NASA is likely to be destroyed for no other reason than partisanship.