It’s all a bit anarchic, I suppose, but it’s also highly effective. Flexible, responsive, mobile, heuristic, with intelligence distributed to the low… - Stephen Baxter

It seems to me that the human race simply isn’t advanced enough yet to be able to trust any subset of itself with the power to run the lives of the rest.

The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.

Since 1970 or thereabouts going to space has not been part of our national agenda.
NASA has kept complete control over space. But since 1970 NASA has produced paper, not spaceships.