America’s space program is stranded in Earth orbit, operating costly space-shuttle and space-station projects that go round and round, and nowhere fast, a panel of space experts said Friday, August 11. Dismayed by the lack of progress in human exploration of space is Chris McKay, a NASA space scientist at the Ames Research Center, near San Francisco, California. “It’s kind of puzzling that since 1969, we haven’t really gone beyond the moon, we being humans,” McKay told an audience of 800 on Friday at the Third International Mars Society Convention.