Sunday, February 7, 2010

Loss of Hope

I'm not sure how I missed the news that our president has scrapped all future manned space flights, but when I read it last night, I felt a deep sense of shame and loss.

The space program has never been about making money.  It's never been about what we could get from it.  It has always been purely about hope.  Having the greatest space program on this planet meant that we were a nation who looked to the future, who dared its children to dream, who strived for something more than a fancy car and a two story house and a pension.  It was something all Americans could look to and say with pride, "We did that."

By consigning our manned space program to the trash heap, our president is telling us to look earthward.  And we all should.  We should be making sure our houses are in order.  But he's also telling us that our dreams, the things beyond our own limited vision, aren't worth anything.  It's like a parent who throws away his child's paint set because his future lies in more concrete endeavors.

Yes, I know we'll still send probes into the galaxy to take photos and send them home, but that's not good enough.  That's like showing a kid a book with a bunch of paintings but telling him he can't go to the museum and see them himself.

I know that our nation is hurting.  I know that there are people who have no homes and no food and no health insurance.  And that it probably makes me sound snobbish and cruel to say that all that money we put into manned space travel shouldn't go to those people.  But a nation that doesn't dream, a nation that doesn't dare to test every boundary, a nation that doesn't innovate, is a nation that is doomed to fail.

By scrapping our manned space program, our government has surely anchored us all.  This is a giant leap backward.

8 comments:

  1. I feel the same way. It broke my heart.

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  2. I feel like it's a natural pause. We didn't send men on the first space missions -- there was too much to learn before risking people. Now, when we're looking at destinations at such exponentially greater distances than the Moon, I think it's smart to test the ice with unmanned missions first. No President's policy is forever. I imagine Mars is next. I wonder if it will take international competition to get men there, the way it did with the Moon.

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  3. Whoa - I missed this news too and it makes me very, very sad

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  4. Shan: I know what you're saying, I just feel like this will stunt our momentum. I'm afraid that now that we've stopped, we'll never get going again. And I shudder to have space travel be in the hands of corporations where there's no such thing as research purely for research sake.

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  5. Yes, it seems like a big step backward. It makes me very sad.

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  6. Actually, the moon is next. This astronaut came to our school. It was awesome. He had been on two spearate missions and brought video footage from NASA. He said that we are abandoning the space station for a while and going back to the moon for an extended period of time. And believe it or not, vacations to the moon are not too far away, but far out of reach for writers. Well, maybe James Patterson or Stephen King. Or that J.K. lady.

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  7. Wow, I missed this too. Upsetting. First the cutting of library funds and now this.

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  8. wow, I hadn't heard either, and it makes me profoundly sad. And maybe I'm totally pessimistic and way off base, but somehow I don't see that money going to the people who need it. I hope I'm wrong.

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