As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, I feel a profound sense of disappointment. Here I am, four decades after the amazing events of that July day writing not from the surface of Mars, as I had once envisioned as a child, or even from earth orbit, but from a house in the suburbs. What happened to the future I was promised? I’m not talking about fantastical future scenarios of flying cars and teleportation, but the never materialized future of space exploration or even a functional space transportation system.
Face it, for people my age, the future arrived and as far as
space goes, it is somewhat pedestrian.
How in the world did American culture get bored with exploration of new
worlds yet fascinated with death of Michael Jackson? Why haven’t we returned to the moon, or gone to Mars? I know
all the standard responses such as, “We should have spent all that money on the
poor?” or “We should spend that
money here on earth?”
Two quick responses: Don’t kid yourself. First, back in the sixties, if the US had not spent that $25 billion on the space race it most likely would have been spent on Vietnam or the Great Society program. And we all know what a stunning success those two projects turned out to be. Second, there is no place in space to spend money. Funds allocated to space exploration are spent and create jobs right here on Earth.
Assuming for a moment that one thinks the government should spend money to stimulate the economy, why limit stimulus packages to bailing financial institutions and shovel-ready projects? Why didn’t the stimulus fund tech-ready projects such as space exploration? No offense to those who dig ditches, but is ditch digging and road building really a 21st century dream for America? Why wasn’t some of the stimulus money earmarked for a return to the moon or even a manned trip to Mars? Wouldn’t the jobs and technology created by such programs be more beneficial to the future of our country than bank bailouts or new highways? Why all this nostalgia for New Deal era programs? What’s next, recreating the Dust Bowl? Given his threatened cancellation of Project Constellation or any of its alternatives, it appears the only soaring America will do is in President Obama's rhetoric and not in reality.
As a kid, I watched each moon mission on NBC (quite heretically, I was a John Chancellor, not a Walter Cronkite kid) with my Saturn V models. I led assemblies at Theunis Dey Elementary School explaining the missions to my fellow classmates. My bedroom walls were papered with posters of Apollo memorabilia. Why doesn’t our government spend some cash to reignite those dreams in our kids today? Instead we bail out companies that should probably just be allowed to fail. What kid is gong to hang a poster of AIG on their wall or spend hours building a Revell model of their local Bank of America branch? The human spirit of exploration, curiosity and adventure is the real institution that shouldn’t be allowed to fail.
I still have hope. Perhaps the entrepreneurial spirit of private space companies can lead the way in space. It’s probably best that they do. The Apollo program was one of the few big government programs that went right. Yet I still can’t shake the fear that, like Portugal, history will remember us as the country that explored the new world first, and then left its colonization to others. Are we destined to become an earth-bound scientifically-illiterate country where people think moon landings are hoaxes and that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time? Will the American presence in space be limited to hamburgers available on the children’s menu at a Chinese restaurant on Mars?
I think back forty years tonight, of me sitting in front of a black and white TV in a turquoise and pink motel room in Ortley Beach, NJ, and wonder if I will ever feel that sense of amazement and infinite possibilities again. If there's one legacy Apollo 11 has left us, it's that the answer to that question can always be, "Yes!"
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