I will admit it. I like science fiction. I watched all the original Star Treks, Next Generations, and Deep Space Nines before suffering Trek fatigue. Star Wars will always be the movie I've seen more than any other. Asimov, Dick and Herbert can make me read an alien tale or two. Sure, they all need to have some engaging story for me to appreciate it, but it all starts with one thing: space travel.

Forty years ago and five years before my birth, America experienced its greatest space travel moment. We went to the moon. We won the Space Race. We were boldly going where no man had gone before. Then came the 70s and we went broke. Then came the 80s and The Challenger exploded. Then came the 90s and we became apathetic. The came the new millennium and we began running after terrorists.

So what's NASA up to these days? Throwing space junk at the moon. Sigh.

That's right. NASA's latest project, Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite or L-Cross for short (sort of), sent two spacecraft BARRELING TOWARD THE MOON AT TWICE THE SPEED OF A BULLET. Exciting, right? Uh, not really.

Space rocks smack the moon on a regular basis (thanks to the lack of an atmosphere), so we are really in no danger of blowing up the moon. The impact was actually so small that is was hard to see the plumes of impact at all. The public was not impressed. Only geeky scientists.

Why was this done? To see if there is ice on the moon. Wow. All this to see if the moon has water.

Hey, I have an idea. WHY DON'T PEOPLE GO BACK TO THE MOON? You know why we don't know what's on the moon? We don't go to it any more! There might be ice, there might be cheese, there might be a monolith that advances our space travel capabilities to the point that we can go to Jupiter and have our computer malfunction and kill all the crew sans one who shuts down HAL and goes on some trippy time travel adventure. Or is that too 1968?

All of our presidents talk about space travel. Even Bush Jr. said we should go to Mars. Of course we're still flying decades old Shuttles that don't do much but offer a cruise around space. It's like going into the great beyond with an old Camero. Looks cool, runs okay, not good on gas, needs maintenance.

I assumed we would all be able to go into space sometime in our lives. Right now, the ticket costs about $25 million. Not exactly in my price range.

Everybody says we need our kids to get better at science. We need more engineers, more chemists, more astronauts. No offense, but I can't think of any famous engineers, chemists or astronauts any more. What have they done that is impressive? If we don't care, no one will.

What's worse is that the scientists don't seem to have any brilliant ideas either. Throwing rocks at the moon? Looking for water? As space travel goes, we're worse than hunter-gatherers.

What are you going to do if you find water? What if you don't? Do you really need a reason to go to the moon? We have a floating space station. Why don't we have a moon station? Astronauts could hang out and blow up all kinds of stuff on the moon. They might even find ice. Wow.

But no. We're idiots. We don't have a clue of what's out there, how to get farther out there, let alone live out there.

I guess I'll just sit at home and read Dune. Again. Sigh.

Chris Jungle doesn't boldly go anywhere.