It hurts when you have to watch something you love get placed on the chopping block. Granted, it’s difficult to actually love a federal agency, but I grew up idolizing the people who work in it. When I was young, I’d visit one of its facilities at least once a month, and it never once got old. So, when President Obama decided to axe NASA’s next manned spaceflight program, Project Constellation, the kid in me, the one that could find his way around NASA’s Johnson Space Center practically blindfolded, just wanted to sit down and sob for a while.
It’s hard to explain why NASA means so much to me. The ancient Greeks had a word, also difficult to translate, called arete. A rough translation is “to aspire to excellence,” or “to take hold of the virtuous and beautiful.” To me, that is the epitome of manned space exploration. Not to overuse a cliché, but it is to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Now, the only bold moves we make are moves backwards. I could have lived with something less grand than a trip to Mars, though God knows we could have been there decades ago. However, what I can’t live with is ceding the high ground because Obama, in his zeal to appease his base, will dismantle one of the truly historic series of programs this country has ever undertook.
I don’t understand the logic here. Obama seems to have no problem with massive deficits, incurring record debt and indulging in “bipartianship” that involves a tiny carrot and a huge stick. He’s just fine with proposing a health care reform bill that involves reform in name only, and continuing to shepherd this lame bill through Congress. Yet, when stacked up against other federal programs that cost billions more, NASA’s manned space program is just too expensive to keep.
Why NASA? Well, it’s the easy choice. When people look at huge rockets going up into space and see astronauts doing weightless acrobatics, it’s easy to cast it all off as frivolous. It’s hard to explain the primary and secondary benefits of space exploration because good science usually defies an easy explanation. In today’s bottom-line world, people don’t want the long answer, or a hard road. Yet, by studying what’s out there, we discover more about what’s going on down here.
For example, the fourth mission to land on the moon, Apollo 15, brought back something called the “genesis rock.” It was a chunk of anorthosite, which was formed when our solar system was in its infancy, nearly four billion years ago - a piece of the original lunar crust, which is remarkably similar, if not nearly the same, as the crust of the Earth. We’re still learning from that rock, even nearly 40 years later.
What truly drives me insane, however, are the people who say it would be too hard to go back. Bull (expletive deleted) can be my only response to that. When, in 1963, President Kennedy declared we’d land on the moon before the end of the 1960s, this country had a grand total of 15 minutes of time in space. We then proceeded to beat Kennedy’s deadline with months to spare. In fact, we did it twice.
Maybe the whole reason we really did it was to beat the Soviets. Maybe it was a propaganda race. Maybe it was all just for show. What it became, however, was so much more than the mere sum of its parts and intentions. For one moment, in July 1969, the world was as one as a human set foot on something that wasn’t this planet for the first time. For a few, all too short years, we stepped into a larger universe as a species.
Then, we quit, because our leaders lacked vision and courage to keep going right when we were getting really good at it. It was bad then, but at least we accomplished something. Now, we just gave up before we even began. That’s not just bad. That’s shameful. For a nation that once set the standard, to roll over and give up without even putting up a fight, without even trying to inspire, Obama sent a message about exactly how much American innovation means to a world that’s ready to eclipse us in the high ground of space.
When the intrepid explorers of China and India blast off for the moon, I’ll applaud them. At least someone out there is still trying. However, I will miss seeing the American flag up there all alone - a reminder of a time when we actually cared about achievement for achievement’s sake.
Maybe private businesses will pick up the torch, and probes and rovers have their place but it’s just not the same. I know our president’s more willing partisan thralls might applaud this, but I can’t. I won’t. To me, it’s a betrayal of our nation’s greatness. It’s a weak tradeoff for savings that could be found elsewhere.
It’s not just change I can’t believe in...it’s change I can’t believe period.
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It hurts when you have to watch something you love get placed on the chopping block. Granted, it’s difficult to actually love a federal agency, but I grew up idolizing the people who work in it. When I was young, I’d visit one of its facilities at least once a month, and it never once got old. So, when President Obama decided to axe NASA’s next manned spaceflight program, Project Constellation, the kid in me, the one that could find his way around NASA’s Johnson Space Center practically blindfolded, just wanted to sit down and sob for a while.
It’s hard to explain why NASA means so much to me. The ancient Greeks had a word, also difficult to translate, called arete. A rough translation is “to aspire to excellence,” or “to take hold of the virtuous and beautiful.” To me, that is the epitome of manned space exploration. Not to overuse a cliché, but it is to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Now, the only bold moves we make are moves backwards. I could have lived with something less grand than a trip to Mars, though God knows we could have been there decades ago. However, what I can’t live with is ceding the high ground because Obama, in his zeal to appease his base, will dismantle one of the truly historic series of programs this country has ever undertook.
I don’t understand the logic here. Obama seems to have no problem with massive deficits, incurring record debt and indulging in “bipartianship” that involves a tiny carrot and a huge stick. He’s just fine with proposing a health care reform bill that involves reform in name only, and continuing to shepherd this lame bill through Congress. Yet, when stacked up against other federal programs that cost billions more, NASA’s manned space program is just too expensive to keep.
Why NASA? Well, it’s the easy choice. When people look at huge rockets going up into space and see astronauts doing weightless acrobatics, it’s easy to cast it all off as frivolous. It’s hard to explain the primary and secondary benefits of space exploration because good science usually defies an easy explanation. In today’s bottom-line world, people don’t want the long answer, or a hard road. Yet, by studying what’s out there, we discover more about what’s going on down here.
For example, the fourth mission to land on the moon, Apollo 15, brought back something called the “genesis rock.” It was a chunk of anorthosite, which was formed when our solar system was in its infancy, nearly four billion years ago - a piece of the original lunar crust, which is remarkably similar, if not nearly the same, as the crust of the Earth. We’re still learning from that rock, even nearly 40 years later.
What truly drives me insane, however, are the people who say it would be too hard to go back. Bull (expletive deleted) can be my only response to that. When, in 1963, President Kennedy declared we’d land on the moon before the end of the 1960s, this country had a grand total of 15 minutes of time in space. We then proceeded to beat Kennedy’s deadline with months to spare. In fact, we did it twice.
Maybe the whole reason we really did it was to beat the Soviets. Maybe it was a propaganda race. Maybe it was all just for show. What it became, however, was so much more than the mere sum of its parts and intentions. For one moment, in July 1969, the world was as one as a human set foot on something that wasn’t this planet for the first time. For a few, all too short years, we stepped into a larger universe as a species.
Then, we quit, because our leaders lacked vision and courage to keep going right when we were getting really good at it. It was bad then, but at least we accomplished something. Now, we just gave up before we even began. That’s not just bad. That’s shameful. For a nation that once set the standard, to roll over and give up without even putting up a fight, without even trying to inspire, Obama sent a message about exactly how much American innovation means to a world that’s ready to eclipse us in the high ground of space.
When the intrepid explorers of China and India blast off for the moon, I’ll applaud them. At least someone out there is still trying. However, I will miss seeing the American flag up there all alone - a reminder of a time when we actually cared about achievement for achievement’s sake.
Maybe private businesses will pick up the torch, and probes and rovers have their place but it’s just not the same. I know our president’s more willing partisan thralls might applaud this, but I can’t. I won’t. To me, it’s a betrayal of our nation’s greatness. It’s a weak tradeoff for savings that could be found elsewhere.
It’s not just change I can’t believe in...it’s change I can’t believe period.
