For numerous reasons, it seems increasingly unlikely that the U.S. will be at the center of future space exploration. Perhaps China will colonize Mars? Godspeed, Zhai Zhigang. From Dennis Overbye’s New York Times article about the new Museum of Natural History exhibit which imagines the next wave of space missions:

“The idea of the exhibition is to look forward 50 or 100 years, not back, said Michael Shara, the curator of the show. ‘We’re at a crossroads,’ he said. ‘We have to decide what to do when we grow up. Where is the vision?’

In this case, the vision is solely Dr. Shara’s, he admitted, arrived at by picking the brains of space experts. Lest you get too excited, it does not yet represent the official agenda of NASA or any other agency.

The world sorely needs some kind of cosmic blueprint going forward, if indeed we are to go forward and outward, and though one can quibble with many details, this one is as good as any. One can fantasize that this show could have the same long-range impact on shaping public expectations in space as magazine articles and television shows did in the 1950s. In that case, I hope it travels to the other countries that are now flexing their space muscles, like China.

Those who think that human spaceflight is ridiculously expensive, wasteful, dangerous and unscientific — a group that includes a lot of scientists I know — might want to stop reading right here. The exhibition plays shamelessly to those of us who were captivated long ago by science fiction dreams and the notion that humanity’s destiny is somehow tied to the stars. For the most part these plans don’t come with price tags attached nor, for that matter, any indication of what currency the price should be denominated in.

‘Somebody will do these things,’ Dr. Shara said. ‘Maybe not the U.S.””