Often it seems helping the world resembles a fool's errand. Without neat things, picturesque places, and nice people to share it might not even seem worth the time. On such an errand one might think - thinking is OK - about ways so to encourage just a little more effort from the immense apathy threatening to encroach us. (That wouldn't hurt better our standing before the unblinking gaze of posterity too.)

Yeah the economy's a mess, guess what, it's spring! Allow sticker shock to numb your senses to the pleasure of picking blooms, and allow worries to tax your good humor. Pretend we're supposed to be digging into a deeper hole rather than clevering up ways to climb up and out. Poise vainly and with spite to lose the last lit position on the global stage, no longer a beacon of technology and can-do spirit.

Maintain an indifference to space exploration in general, and esteem education as meaningless for any valuable reward. Allow insipid levels of entertainment to inspire today's children away from being tomorrow's scientists and engineers. Discourage young people from training their minds to the standard rewarding their bodies. Close hospitals and schools to hire more pharmacomercenaries. A world with no inadequate respect for education ends up with moon hoaxers in it.

Speaking of, let's leave unmined any new and exciting goals for the Russian space program. The Russians have always been the first in most every important endeavor of space, though as Picard remarks "that being first, at any cost, is not always the point." Their rugged approach to hardware enabled the lifeboat service that kept the continuity alive during the dark time after Columbia.

For the Chinese, proceed without eager engagement. Ignore expert advice such as, "There's no space in space for politics." Ignore attention, even if it's popular attention. What do the people have to do with this anyway? Even if "our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet Earth evolved independently" it takes positive attitudes and strength to sustain that hope day by day. So just ask.

Now that they're up and running, the services of the Space Shuttle are no longer allowed. Forget about the heavenly images brought down to Earth by Hubble. Hang to imprudent dreams of riding wealth through war thereby to bleed a vision to death - then cancel it just in time to splash the International Space Station into the Pacific Ocean. You think the comedians are talking now? Go ahead and give that scenario a try.