Today is July 20th. Only proper to write about the moon landings, right? Its being written over at plenty of blogs this day-and its is an anniversary of a great achievement. Except-as Tom Wolfe points out in a well written essay, its also the begining of the end of the glory days for NASA and the American space program. Because for me, the key question about today is not: "Celebrating that we went to the moon", but more for being reminded-painfully I hope-of the question that should have been haunting the United States since about 1975:
Why did we stop going there?
Wolfe sums it up:
It was no ordinary dead-and-be-done-with-it death. It was full-blown purgatory, purgatory being the holding pen for recently deceased but still restless souls awaiting judgment by a Higher Authority.
Like many another youngster at that time, or maybe retro-youngster in my case, I was fascinated by the astronauts after Apollo 11. I even dared to dream of writing a book about them someday. If anyone had told me in July 1969 that the sound of Neil Armstrong’s small step plus mankind’s big one was the shuffle of pallbearers at graveside, I would have averted my eyes and shaken my head in pity. Poor guy’s bucket’s got a hole in it.
Why, putting a man on the Moon was just the beginning, the prelude, the prologue! The Moon was nothing but a little satellite of Earth. The great adventure was going to be the exploration of the planets … Mars first, then Venus, then Pluto. Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus? NASA would figure out their slots in the schedule in due course. In any case, we Americans wouldn’t stop until we had explored the entire solar system. And after that … the galaxies beyond.
That was certainly the way I felt-especially when I bamboozled my mother into letting me watch 2001, A Space Odyssey by my 12 year old lonesome, while she went shopping at Kaufman’s and Gimble’s. ( It was a different time). I was confident by the year 2001 we would have bases on the moon, and space stations rotating high above us in orbit. Man would have been to Mars or would have been shortly getting ready to. That faster than the speed of light thing? An inconvenience to be gotten around in due course.
But after 1972, we only went to, wait for it, low earth orbit. And while there is no doubt that they have accomplished some solid scientific work and the program has been a great bridge from super power confrontation in space, to a multi-national effort. All great stuff-but ask yourself: Is this really the best mankind can do?
The answer better be a resounding HELL NO! There is a lot we could be doing-and even if we had two tracked the effort, going to the moon once a year while still working the shuttle, it would have at least kept our ‘hand in the game so to speak.
"But there are so many problems on earth that need looking after.
Yes, there are. And no one has to convince me that there is a horrible mismatch between the things the country -or the world for that matter-is spending money on, vs what it should be spending money on.
As Jesus reminded us, the poor will be with you always, but Mars only being 56 million miles away, only happens every 60 years or so.
"But we don’t have the money-and Obama is spending whatever money we do have left".
That may or may not be true-but its still all a matter of scale, isn’t it? NASA’s annual budget is only 17.3 billion dollars a year. We blow more than that on worthless Arabs in less than three months. Even if NASA got a plus of up of just one month’s worth of that money-leaving one still 6 billion a month to blow on Arabs-think of what they could do in addition? I’m not even going to mention how much we spend on a whole bunch of other things even closer to home.
Space travel is a bargain actually, compared to the other things we waste money on.And unlike so many other things we are "stimulating" actually creates a ripple wave of jobs.
That is just one reason to support manned space exploration.
I will tell you what, commit the US to going back to the moon before 2012-doable with current technology, ( especially considering that the Ares rocket is nothing more than Apollo on steroids).-and I’ll concede that health care for all may be a bridge too far, this year or any year.
Setting aside the money though-there is a second point that Wolfe makes and its crucial: America lost its will to be optimistic about the future.
Even Ronald Reagan, The Great Communicator, did not spend his persuasive talents on firing America back to the stars. ( Something I never really understood-what a great message about "bringing America back".)
America had a lot of problems in 1969 too-problems that make today’s un-comforts look small in comparison. But we were, as a nation paused and proud of ourselves on this one special day today.
I truly don’t think there has been a moment like it since then. Some have come close-but the slow but sure steady drip, drip, drip, of our descent into a type of national polity where, "You’re wrong, I’m right! Fuck you and fuck the guy you voted for-he’s one step above the anti-Christ!"-that certainly has not helped us get serious about moving mankind away from a time of war to a time of, if not peace, at least a renewed exploration.
I’m not optimistic we can get that back. No matter who’s in Congress or the White House. The damage is just too great.
And the blame for that lies not with Democrats or Republicans. It lies with a death of a national will to achieve. In the end we only have ourselves to blame. I’m sure I’ll get beat up for that last statement-Jimmy Carter learned the hard way about telling people what they don’t want to hear-but I know in my heart its true. We are capable of doing more-and doing it faster than 40 years. Regardless of who is office.
We can actually solve a lot of our own problems and lead the world on a great quest-if we would only believe in it.
I won’t live to see the current crisis of confidence resolve itself, I’m afraid. But I sure would like to live long enough to see more footprints on the moon.