Permit me a brief intermission from reviews, to commemorate the special space related anniversaries found around these days. There's so many of them! It could be that we're so hungry for good news we anticipate great things to come by recalling great things that were. (Or it could be our proclivity to accept just about any excuse for a party.) Whatever the case, today we celebrate forty-five years of humans in orbit. Not four years had passed since Sputnik before artificial satellites were capable of sustaining human life, and soon enough Yuri Gagarin rocketed into the loopy world of orbital mechanics, taking our first memorable trip to the final frontier, forever securing us as a space faring species.

After that feat followed a steady line of achievement that has literally taken us to the moon and beyond. Twenty-five years ago we had "The Motion Picture" but sadly after the heights of Apollo the real trek had dwindled almost to nothing, only to revive with a real Enterprise and subsequent space shuttle flights that ensued so spectacularly. I remember the launch of Columbia fondly, as impressed as everyone else, and now the fleet has carried almost three hundred people into space. Tragedies suck of course, yet how much that program has done for us even as it finishes a useful life after many runs. Where would we be without Hubble? Or ISS? Godspeed Expedition 13! May Alpha grow safely in your charge, and may you see the return of the three person crew.

After months of travel Venus Express has successfully been captured by Earth's sister planet. Our first visit in over a decade, the probe arrived with sufficient fuel margin to entertain an extended mission of much needed science. I hope it proves a productive two days or more, speaking as a Venusian! Speaking of extended missions, don't forget the Martian rovers. Both Spirit and Opportunity have pleasantly outlasted their specs yet as another winter comes one can only hope they keep running (on however many wheels as they can muster). Maybe their endurance reflects some cosmic tradeoff for all the other recent Martian probes that went splat upon arrival.

At some point one expects the stature of our accomplishments to startle our political will. We certainly have our moments trying to survive our primitive nuclear era, but only sheer foolishness would prevent the human race from pursuing the path we find ourselves so far along. Our Star Trek will go on forever, so long as we make it so.