  The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory
has been developing the capability of accelerating, storing and colliding
high-energy polarized proton beams over the past several years. During this
development phase, important first measurements of cross sections and spin
asymmetries for neutral pions produced in polarized proton collisions at
$\sqrt{s}$=200 GeV have been completed by STAR and PHENIX, the two large
collider experiments at RHIC. This contribution reports on progress of the RHIC
spin program and provides an outlook for the future.
