Volume II No. 23
 01-16-04
 The Right Time
 { A Worthy New Purpose
   For America's Space Agency }
 author: Vance Cureton
 © Copyright 2004

 Well, it was little over a week ago when G.W. made his pitch to
 the Latino vote with his rediculous "amnesty" plan for illegal
 aliens. { mostly Mexican } This time G.W. went on television
 and tried to have a "Kennedy-esque moment" with his announcement
 Wednesday of a far-reaching plan to send men back to the moon 
 in a decade. And then forward to Mars by 2030.

 Well as they say, "G.W. you ain't no John Kennedy." And that
 is the absolutely truth. But this time the President may have
 actually stumbled into proposing the right thing. 

 At the right time.

 The parallels between now and those far-away days back in
 1957, when Russia launched Sputnik I and scared the hell out
 of everybody in the West, are amazing. It wasn't long after the 
 Sputnik's launch, the space race became reality.

 The late President Kennedy made his famous speech in 1961
 about "...sending a man to the moon, and returning him safely 
 to the Earth." And in eight short years Kennedy's dream became 
 reality.

 That was thirty-five years ago.

 There were barely any color televisions in the living rooms of 
 America, back then. The electronic pocket calculator hadn't been 
 invented yet. { Texas Instruments where have you gone? } There 
 were no microwave ovens, LED watches, or video game consoles. 
 The eight track player was not a familiar feature in the dashboards
 of expensive luxury cars. In 1969 vinyl records were still king. 

 Cassette recording tape had yet to arrive in stores across America.
 The boomboxes that would one day become the scourge of public 
 parks and school playgrounds were not seen in 1969. Youngsters
 had to make do with tiny, weak-sounding transitor radios. And 
 the common everyday telephone answering machine was still a
 dream in some engineer's head. -- If that engineer had even been 
 born by then.

 And yet, we went to moon.

 Those were a long thirty-five years. From then, until now.

 In fact, the computer you're reading this article on has far more
 processing power and memory than anything you would find
 in an Apollo moon capsule. -- And by a margin so wide it is
 scary to contemplate. Can you imagine traveling to the moon 
 in a space capsule where the onboard computer has less 
 computational ability than your used and abused old laptop?

 Volunteers you say? I'll pass. Thank you very much.

 The sixties was the generation of long-haired hippies, casual 
 "unprotected" sex, bathtub-shaped Volkwagen buses, and 
 endless talk of peace and love. We remember Woodstock as 
 we mourn both Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin. The passage of
 the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that helped to empower Black people 
 and other minorities, had Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, 
 Lester Maddox, and other like-minded racists, running to the 
 bathroom.

 Another bottle of the slimy pink stuff, anyone?

 We were in the middle of a hearbreaking war in Vietnam. Men 
 died. More men were sent to replace those that died. And then 
 more were sent to replace those men.

 And this country went to moon successfully a mere eight years
 after Kennedy's speech.

 The sixties was a time of horrendous social problems, racial
 conflict, international disputes, { the Cold War was still going
 on } and a general anxiety about what would come next.

 Is today so different?

 Islamic terrorists who kill without a conscious, are our new 
 No. 1 enemy to replace the old Soviet Union. A country in the 
 desert is to be rebuilt with America's money. And with a cost 
 in American lives. { thank you, George Bush } There is unemployment 
 back home. And an ever increasing dissatisfaction with American 
 jobs being shipped abroad, and with disrespectful "illegals" violating 
 our borders.

 That is simply the reality of life. There will always be problems.
 Name a decade in the last twenty, when this country wasn't 
 faced with some great social ill, threat of war, or economic uncertainty. 
 --- In boom times, economists make a fortune predicting when 
 the bubble will burst. In bad times, the reverse is true.

 There is always uncertainty. So, who can say what tomorrow
 will bring? Life goes on in the interim. But, America did not become 
 the world's sole remaining superpower by holding back and 
 waiting for the "right time" to do anything.

 Because there will never be a right time.

 America's greatest strength is her tradition of entrepreneurship,
 and industrial ingenuity. And her ability to find a way to "get 
 things done." NASA { and the entire industrial complex related
 to the aerospace industry } plays to America's strengths. Not her 
 weaknesses. The Space Shuttle program has been a partial failure 
 because the vision was all wrong. A space bus program should 
 have long ago, been left to private industry. { and private industry 
 is finally focusing on the economic potential in this area. }

 But, as the remarkable Mars rovers have shown. The action is 
 "out there." Not circling endlessly around in a space station three 
 hundred miles above the Earth's surface. Yes, space travel for humans
 is extremely dangerous. And may remain so for a very long time 
 to come. But, there is only so much a robot explorer can do. Only 
 a human being can improvise and find a solution for the unanticipated.

 That's why human beings need to get back "out there." 

 NASA's draw is barely 1% of the nation's budget. Although the
 numbers may seem staggering. { we're talking billions of dollars }
 The alarmists { and the religious-types who by default are skeptical
 of anything having to do with outer space } always talk about the 
 costs as if the money were headed straight down the toilet.

 The President's proposal as well as a full discussion of NASA's
 proper role deserves a serious conversation. 

 The benefits of future space exploration will come. Maybe not 
 in our lifetimes, but eventually. And anyone who has had a
 relative saved by an MRI exam that found a cancer that was 
 undetectable a generation ago, can thank the fools who "wanted 
 to give money to NASA and not provide for the poor and the
 underpriviledged."

 Take a slow glance around you in the room you're in right now. 
 Anything that has a computer chip, LED, or electronic component, 
 is in some way related to the space program, and to the technological
 innovation that space exploration inspires. Even the battery in 
 the watch on your wrist was rushed along by experiments to find
 more efficient batteries for space vehicles. Jewelers and watch
 repair shops { have you seen one lately? } would have much preferred 
 to take your money and stay in the business of maintaining timepieces
 that relied on the power of an old-fashioned metal spring. But these
 businesses had to keep up with change. Didn't they?

 So, are you sorry about the wondrous things you see in your own
 home?

 We need jobs in this country. A re-energized NASA with a more
 clearly-defined and inspirational mission would mean more jobs. 
 { and an attendant brain drain from our competitors such as Korea, 
 China, Japan, India, parts of Eastern and Western Europe, as well
 as what's left of Russia }

 A NASA with a clearer mission is an investment in America. And 
 may eventually give a tremendous boost to the private sector that 
 will manufacture all of those "electronic goodies" that will go into 
 the next got to have "toy" 15 or 20 years from now.

 If we can focus so much of our industrial might on building smart 
 weapons to help the military bomb people out of existence. Then what's 
 wrong with using our ingenuity for peaceful purposes and to expand 
 our knowledge of the universe?

 We didn't go to the moon thirty-five years ago, only to have China
 or some other nation with a "Johnny-come-lately" space program
 reap the benefits of our investment. We, as a nation, need to finish 
 what we started.

 NASA's dollars aren't going to go to feed the starving masses in 
 North Korea, Uganda, or some other Godforsaken place. Or to 
 provide for free health care in this country. Those dollars won't
 come from the space program. Neither should they have to.

 The money NASA requires is not excessive or out of line. We just 
 have to ignore the hysteria, and be wise to those who redicule any
 discussion of space exploration.

 The future is nothing to be afraid of. The future is simply what is
 going to happen.

 John F. Kennedy's vision was the correct one. He believed in America. 
 In our capabilities. The only question now is will today's Congressional
 bean counters find the courage to let NASA continue her mission.

 Not as a space bus company. But as an organization with a purpose 
 that will inspire all of humanity for many generations to come.
 

 ReadingPost.Com
 © Copyright 2004

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