Re: Hard Sci-fi?

In article <68ibsmF2semlgU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Eivind  <eivindorama@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Michael Ash skreiv:
>
>> To within perhaps 10%, all members of *our* civilization are religious,

>> and this has been true since basically the dawn of time. Of the two 
>> major spacefaring countries, both have large religious majorities. (I'm

>> not counting China until they at least replicate their stunt.)
>
>True. But we're not really a "spacefaring civilization" are we ? Okay, 
>perhaps in the strictest sense, but in practice we don't do anything 
>more than occasionally orbit a handful of people a few 100 kms above the 
>surface of earth... We didn't even visit the moon -once- the last few 
>decades. (when was the last time we had a -unmanned- probe landing on 
>the moon btw?)

	SMART-1 in 2006. Of course, it touched down at orbital speed so
the information it conveyed from the surface was in the form of an 
explosion. Before that, HITEN experienced regolith-braking phase in
1993. 

	The most recent lander was Luna 24 in 1976. 


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