At this point I wouldn’t trust our country’s leadership to run a bus route let alone a space agency. But I can’t imagine the private space sector advancing anything besides investor profits. It’s a lose lose.

I know I have friends, but they’re all technically my wife’s friends and their husbands. We probably socialize once or twice a month, depending on schedules. I love them all, but I have no friends that I socialize with 1:1. It’s always a group event. So in a way it feels like I have no friends.

The one friend that is truly and originally my friend, since middle school, I’ll see maybe once a month if I’m lucky and it’s usually a framily event with our wives and kids. And the time and distance apart feels wider than ever as we’ve gotten older.

Socializing at 40 is… different, and oddly lonely.