"The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century" by Thomas Friedman was published in 2005 and released again with updates in 2006 and 2007.  While his conclusions aren't universally accepted, there's no debating the worldwide impact of globalization and increasingly competitive commerce.

In his May 19, 2007 commencement address at Rensselaer he said: "The greatest challenge currently facing the United States is determining how to maintain a standard of living that can provide good jobs, health care, and basic needs to Americans while setting an example of a free society to the rest of the world. To remain the great nation it is today, the United States needs to remain at the forefront of technology and vigorously pursue solutions to help energize and educate a changing world."

In an August 2007 interview in Moment magazine he built on this by stating that "... to the extent that we shift the entire global debate to make 'green' part of the DNA of everything that we make, design, produce and build, we play to our strength.  We create jobs that can't be outsourced."

In yesterday’s news release (NASA AWARDS CONTRACT FOR MICROGRAVITY AIRCRAFT SERVICES), NASA announced that it “… has awarded a contract to Zero Gravity Corporation of Las Vegas to manage and operate an aircraft to perform reduced gravity parabolic flights while carrying NASA-operated experiments and personnel.”

How can this be both a small step and a giant leap at the same time… without breaking the laws of physics and requiring two specialized pair of shoes?