> Our lives would be so much better now had our ancestors just learned to accept their lot in life.

LOL! Classic:-)

etaoin, I din't mean that we should let everything drop in space travel and fall into perpetual meditation. I'm just very sceptical of the use of manned space exploration at this point. It's very expensive and the return is low. Of all the space projects - all of the most scientifically astounding have been unmanned - e.g. the Hubble Telescope. No doubt the trip to the moon (if we truly have been there;-) was a great achievement, but they didn't really find out anything amazing about our little friend except that it's possible to land on it.