Image copyright© British Interplanetary Society

If you want to make rabbit pie, first catch your rabbit.  If you want to conquer space, you've got to get there first. 

The tricky thing is how to do it.  Despite what you might see in the common or garden variety science fiction film, getting into orbit is not at all easy.  The power requirements are staggering and the technological hurdles are worse than getting Windows to stop crashing.  Even the most enthusiastic would-be space pioneer soon comes up against that sobering moment when he realises that space travel involves more than clobbering together a Flash Gordon rocket ship in the garden and lighting the blue touch paper.  

You can just imagine the first meetings of the BIS, VfR, or the ARS back in the '30s:  "Gentlemen, we are going to conquer space... Big, isn't it?"

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