Fourty-two years ago today, the first human footprints were placed on the Moon. And the Shuttle touched down this morning on it's final flight, marking the end of thirty-four years of service. Two-thirds* of the people on Earth today are too young to remember those moonwalks and the excitement of looking up and thinking that some of us were up there, in outer space and on another planetary body.

But we haven't stopped looking up.

My own children have been wowed by the flaring of the Shuttle and International Space Station as it passed over our home one summer evening (see if you can catch a flare at your home**).

The glory of the night sky is dimmed by city lights, but the wonder of the rising full Moon is as glorious in Manhattan, London and Hong Kong as it is here in the middle of Pennsylvania or out wonderfully starry skies of the desert.

There's been a lot of discussion in the media about the last flight of the Space Shuttle. I for one am a fan of the Shuttle, if only for having launched and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope which has opened our eyes to the reality of the universe in amazing ways***. It's time, however, to build new systems to take humanity beyond low Earth orbit.

We haven't stopped looking up.

So, I tip my hat to Niel and Buzz and all our astronauts, and I tip my hat to the Shuttle as it goes into retirement. I also tip my hat to the entrepreneurs pursuing human space flight on the commercial end.

For our part on the Lunar Lion X Prize Team, we will push the envelope to realize our dream of space exploration through non-governmental means. When the Lunar Lion spacecraft lands on the Moon, it will be our own "giant leap," but my hope is that it is one leap among many, and that together we can play a role in the expansion of humanity through the cosmos.

Never stop looking up!

* http://www.census.gov/idb/worldpopinfo.html
** http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings
*** http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/galindex.html