Thats a fact but remmember they burned up.. how many rockets in the process? As well as the fact that rocketry was born in the early 50's; therefor, I would offer there was a twenty year period of trial and error. There doesn't seem to be a debate really; we needed to protect the skies from the Russians and driven by the threat of Sputnik and their obvious success we disregarded failure and pushed through until things worked and learned by trial and error how to get up there. As soon as Armstrong landed that was the cut-off point for space funding. Soon as the powers that be realised there was no financial benefit to space exploration they cut the budget to the bone and therein lies my point. The price of oil will rise until it becomes financially prudent to excersize any and all methods to retrieve it from the ground; shale oil, natural gas; you probably know more about this than I do. There will be no government mandated conservation except as token measures designed to placate the environmentalists. I have no personal stake in this; whatever the price becomes I will have to pay it; and if I resort to alternative methods of energy production on my property; they will find a way to tax it. Let me ask you; how do you envision a national approach to finding better energy production methods be implemented? Should the government create a public energy policy with laws and ordinances dictating how and what to do or what we will be allowed to do? They tried energy subsidies in the 70's and they were abused by the very people in charge now. Vouchers for conservation? I'm curious. This is a serious subject worthy of reasoned debate. Since any programs must be taxpayer funded; who should pay?