As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut, and that is why I went to the Naval Academy, though bad eyes and a bad back knocked me from contention well before my 21st birthday. So I live my dreams vicariously through Spirit and Opportunity and Curiosity and New Horizons and Cassini Huygens and scores of other space missions.

After Magellan’s crew circumnavigated the globe, it took nearly 80 years before Sir Francis Drake became the second man to duplicate that feat, after which point global commerce grew rapidly as merchants gained confidence in their abilities to tap distant markets and resources.

We hit the moon for the first time in 1969-1973, so if we can get back before 2049, then we are doing better than Magellan and Drake did. My money is on the Chinese to get there next, which is fine, since Drake and Magellen represented different countries, too.

So I think we are living through the glory days of early planetary exploration right now, with Curiousity as an amazing and audacious next step in our ongoing adventure.

But I have never thought that believing this made me some sort of science snob. In fact, if anything, it has always been a manifestation of the arrested adolescent in me, still marvelling at watching rockets go whoosh into space.