To Boldly Go . . . . by Ira Schwartz
“Space the final frontier….” I don’t think there is a person in this country if not the planet that does not recognize the beginning of this preamble. Most of us know the rest too. In 1966 Star Trek warped onto the TV screens all across America. Gene Roddenberry’s creation showed us a future of hope and enlightenment where all our races worked together to achieve a better life. True, back then it was just Science Fiction but then a strange thing happened; Neil Armstrong stepped down off a small ladder and became the first human being to walk on another world. That “one small step for man” brought the whole world to a stop and for that brief moment we were all one people.
It’s strange how certain things mark a turning point in the path a civilization takes. The Apollo missions to the moon were a positive focal point for our world. It brought hope in a time of much despair and danger. People could now look up at the moon and know man had been there and was going back.
But NASA did their job too well. The missions went off flawlessly and became routine. As public interest dropped so did NASA’s budget. Instead of building and maintaining a base on the moon NASA determined it would be cheaper to build an orbital space station. The last footprints of man on the moon were made in 1972, just three years after the first. Thirty eight years later the “International Space Station” still remains a work in progress and NASA is preparing to mothball the remaining shuttles in September 2010.
So with no shuttles to get our astronauts into space and no new lifting vehicles on the drawing board how will our people get up to the space station? We’ll be hitching a ride with the Russians. And you’d be wrong if you think the Russians will be doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Rumor has it that the US will have to pay the Ruskies 50 million dollars per astronaut per launch. Can we sink any lower? Actually we can; Last week President Obama stated that the moon will no longer be a priority for NASA. This effectively puts NASA out of the Manned Space business and puts America into last place in the space race.
But all is not lost. Out in the Mojave Desert, amid the carcasses of discarded airliners rusting in the sun a strange thing is taking place; a 10,000 foot long, 200 foot wide runway is under construction. When completed in the spring or summer of this year it will be the third largest runway in the world. So why build a runway in the middle of nowhere? To land spacecraft of course.
You see we Americans still believe that if you want something done right you gotta do it yourself. This runway is just the beginning of the first privately owned and run spaceport in the world. Backed by several entrepreneurs including “Virgin Galactic’s” Sir Richard Branson, Spaceport America plans to have ISS flights up and running by the end of 2012. And Virgin Galactic is not alone. According to the January issue of “Popular Science” there are at least 14 companies that hold contracts from NASA to launch payloads into space for them. Most, if not all, also have manned orbital craft either on the drawing board or under construction and are dedicated to the success of Spaceport America. We could see intercontinental sub orbital flights in 3 to 5 years and orbital passenger flights by the end of the decade. With the moon in their eventual crosshairs, mining rights you know, can Mars be far behind? Space is getting exciting again and profitable.
The privatization of the space program was only a matter of time. Ever since the end of the moon landings NASA’s budgets have become smaller and smaller. Despite what anyone else says I truly believe this has led the agency to constantly put vehicles into orbit that were way past their prime and unsafe, indirectly causing the death of those chosen to fly them. It’s a sad end to a once great agency. It just proves that anything our government runs eventually turns to shit.
So I say “screw” Obama, bye, bye NASA and hello SPACEPORT AMERICA. The torch has been passed to the next generation of space explorers. Hopefully they will continue to “seek out new worlds and civilizations and to boldly go where no one has gone before.”
Links to Spaceport America and Virgin Galactic are listed below. Also the January issue of “Popular Science” has several in depth articles about the private space race. Its good reading. Live long and prosper.
© 2010 by Ira Schwartz. All rights reserved. Used with permission
Labels: Apollo, Barack Obama, Ira Schwartz, NASA, Space Program, Star Trek
posted by Frank T. DeMartini @ 8:33 AM
4 Comments:
Ira: What a perfect line! "It just proves that anything our government runs eventually turns to shit." Can we have that carved above the entrance to the Capitol Building?
They'd probably spell "shit" wrong
I assume you guys mean, Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, the Post Office, etc....
You guys are the greatest but there is an element of group think here that may not serve conservatism that well. Waiting for a leader is action paralysis, an excuse for analyzing, criticizing and commentary, on doing little to build a platform for progress. .
The Tea Party did not have a leader other than the people collective. The Founding Fathers did not have a leader. The Supreme Court does not have a “leader” in the sense of “someone to follow.” What all these individuals have in common is that they are united and operate in the defense of a unifying belief.
Leaders facilitate action; they are not the cause, reason or source of it. One cannot identify the “leader” of the Progressive Party but it may now control the Senate and House of Representatives. Fathom the quandary of the Flt 93 heroes, the Xmas bomber hero or the Fort Hood police officer had they waited for a leader to appear. When a people are resolved in principle, a leader is present.
The political progress within our country is sadly the consequence of the exploitation of the opposition’s weakness (something you all do extremely well) and not the advancement of a moral strength or imperative. Rather than struggling to build on an ideologies strength, to hold core values sacred when the political horizon is hostile, we respond in kind, we also “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it”, which is, too often, more emotionally satisfying and intellectually bankrupt. This can be a serious weakness of conservatism.
Conservatisms must return to its root ideologies. In this era of disingenuous politics, inbred and incestuous political corruption (Louisiana Purchase, Nebraska Cornhusker deal, Nevada, and Massachusetts exemptions, all are corrupt proliferations where integrity, bribes and pork are decadently fungible) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity (Albert Einstein).
Honor, integrity, honesty, embracing the platform of our founding fathers, supporting the constitution, swearing allegiance to truth and abhorring lies whatever the price, championing everything righteous that our country has stood for these two hundred years, is an imperative for living, it does not guarantee success.
Do not accept the premise that Conservatism needs a leader. The concept of Ayn Rand Objectivism is crucial. When you represent me, and I know my beliefs, you have my support. We cannot place the burden of success on a leader or leadership, although they are important, without a sense of self. We must know what we want, desire, believe and are willing to fight for ideologically. Our moral compass must have unerring direction. Then we will understand that leaders are no more than Crusaders on point who have adequately analyzed the collective and represent a means to our journey’s end. It is up to us to know what we believe in ….not to go looking for it in another. If one must give up core principles to join bipartisanship then bipartisanship is expendable.
A person can be lead to conservatism but they cannot be forced to adopt it. The difference is that “Leadership” today, that form in the Tea Party movement, in the form of the Massachusetts revolution, is not a collection of an individual’s traits in-situ. It is a bottom-up people-collective, a citizenry, a populace, an assembly wanting to govern themselves. And yes, individuals who embrace our cause can represent us. But understand they are no longer, necessarily, our “leaders.” They are our servants! This is an old concept buried in that misty old document called the Constitution. They must understand this premise.
Conservatism does not need a leader. Have we not learned the lesson of Massachusetts? True leadership is not “attribute” persona definable, it is results, performance oriented.
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