When I said I was not as happy about the new rocket as I would like to be it isn't that I am disappointed in the rocket, I understand that we got good at rockets back in the 60s and there is only so much more you can do. Big tube full of something that burns really hot and a nuzzle to control it with can be tweaked but you really can't change the physics. I am disappointed with the lack of progress with our space program as a whole. As kid I really bought into this next step into a new frontier concept. The walls of my bedroom had pictures of astronauts and rocket ships, I read every scfi book I could get my hands on. I really believed that I would have a chance to be part of the first moon colony now I wonder if I was watching the peak of our space program instead of the birth. Call me cynical but for now Mars is pipe dream we are using to pretend we have plans for a manned space program when we really don't. If we really want to get to Mars we will have to willing to make it a national priority. Instead we draw up plans. You either have a manned space program or you don't and right now I would have to say we don't. Thirty years ago if you had told me the only way American astronauts could get into space was to ride Russian rockets I would have assumed that meant we lost the Cold War.