The final frontier

Our collective expansionist fantasies are usually fueled by Hollywood, shoddy history and the far right, but sometimes the reporting of science's enthusiastic curiosity achieves a similar outcome. Too much TV has convinced the older parts of our brains that we can simply move on, beyond the final frontier, and steal some other bugger's planet for the pillaging delight of the elite few "on board".. This is not so, needless to say.
(Have you seen the price of rocket fuel lately? )

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080616/tsc-uk-space-planets-011ccfa.html

The brain-stretching technology involved has better uses. For a stupid species, we're really awfully clever.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4151891.ece