About three hundred people were at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2008 for the 11th annual Mars Society Convention.

On the second to the last day only 8 people climbed the back stairs and walked down a shadowy corridor to the tiny room for this session.

In my mind, it was worth the cost of admission and airfare all by itself.

You think you need money, for Space or for something else? Kick this up to about 5 minutes in and let it roll. See if it strikes you. If it does, restart it at the beginning to hear the quick introductions of who these guys are and let it roll again so that what struck you will drive itself into your passion-brain.

This is from my private collection, up there with the original Tony Robbins stuff and background replays of "The Secret of My Success" for getting me off my ass. If you don't care about Mars... you should still know about your government.

FYI: Note the mention of NASA's entire budget being just "6 tenths of one percent of the federal budget" andalso the longtime "joke" of the entire United States Space budget being in the rounding error of our federal budget. That was in 2008 ... here in 2009 with the Stimulus and other New Deals, that sad-already percentage has even more greatly dropped. Love those weather reports, GPS routes, Google maps and near earth object tracking projects? They're just slivers of the small agency sliver. Great work for a threadbare shoestring budget. I've grown away from being a big fan of NASA, but that doesn't make the balance sheet any more Correct in my head. :(

Robert Smith
Kirkland, WA