I have been asked to make some opening remarks about the future of space infrared astronomy, with special reference to the very exciting new ideas which are the subject of this workshop. I take literally the intention of the organisers that this is a “workshop” and so everything which the participants and I say are really ideas, concepts and work in progress. This is particularly important for the concept of passively cooled space infrared telescopes where there are many open issues. My role is to be provocative so that we at least address as many of the important questions as we can without necessarily being able to answer them all.