None of us thought, when this colloquium was scheduled, that the timing would enable it to become a celebration as well. The launch, after years of postponements, of the Hubble Space Telescope, has cast a galactic glow over the proceedings here this week. But at the same time, the frustrating delays caused by the collapse in 1986 and very slow regeneration of the U.S. space launch capabilities since then make this discussion of near-earth access very pointed.

As we know, the sheer momentum of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program has dominated our perceptions of space launch for a decade and a half. It reached its peak in the early 1980s when our national policy placed nearly total reliance on the Shuttle as our means of access to space. It was a policy doomed to fail, for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.