I feel like the tide is turning in popular culture a bit. One of the best books I've read this year was Kim Stanley Robinson's *Aurora* which I [blogged about last month](https://steemit.com/books/@winstonalden/shrinking-horizons-in-hard-science-fiction-review-of-the-three-body-problem-and-aurora). It was an especially moving story about a "generation ship" (another classic space-exploration meme) and all the things that could go wrong with such a wildly complex operation. 

It managed to be a tale of survival while simultaneously being a tale of defeat. And this from an author whose *Mars* Trilogy did a lot to popularize the ideas of terraforming.

As a lover of SF, I have mixed feelings about this. But it does show that rational voices are starting to enter the conversation about space exploration.