During the recent coverage of Burt Rutan’s history-making SpaceShipOne, I took note of the coverage of both the Rutans, who have been frequent aviation newsmakers, and especially, 62 year-old pilot Mike Melvill. He has been aptly called the next Chuck Yeager.

So, today I am watching TNT’s rerun of the epic HBO miniseries From The Earth To The Moon. And it occurs to me, NASA has done itself a great dis-service by not playing up the personalities of our current space program, as they had for Mercury through Apollo. Indeed, our current batch of Space Shuttle crewmembers are little more than bus drivers. And the people behind the scenes are, well, people behind the scenes.

Rest assured that, on the world’s new privately funded ventures into space, those who travel, as well as those who make it happen, will be hailed as the pioneering heroes they are.