just as the oceans opened up a new world for clipper ships and yankee traders, space holds enormous potential for commerce today. we ll soon implement a number of executive initiatives, develop proposals to ease regulatory constraints, and with nasa s help, promote private sector investment in space. private sector investment in space. that time, in the state of the union, president reagan was able to hold back from wishing that space aliens would invade the earth. but what he was describing, 30 years ago now, in that speech, it has come to pass. there is a permanently or at least semipermanently manned space station orbiting the earth right now. just as ronald reagan said there should be. it took more than a decade to get there but we did get one. and it is international. like he said. it s called the international space station. it used to be that russia and the united states, we would each do our own versions of space stations. if you re old enough to remember