July 20, 2005

One Small Step for a Man

fragile moon over Wailua Kauaii courtesy of kauaiikim

The Moon...I stare at it sometimes and think of the dreams of so many people that wanted our nation to be the first to land on it, to walk its surface, and to live on it. My father was one of those people. He spent many hours as a young man dreaming of flight. After his WWII tour in the Navy he went to work in aircraft plants in San Diego. On this date last year I wrote about his experiences in the space program and the situation we find our space program in today.

The orbiter Discovery sits on her launch pad at the Cape. Gantried for flight , her current mission is on indefinate hold...She is an elderly ship, of obsolete design, never meant to fly as many missions as she has. Even with the retrofit she has been given since that fateful day in 2003 when her sister Columbia blew apart in the Texas skies, killing the precious cargo of crew members, (may God have mercy on their souls!)I personally don't think she is safe to fly. The two delays show the care that is being given to the launch, the concern about every little glitch...But there are too many things to go wrong...

We need to let go of this particular generation of spacecraft and move forward to a newer and more efficient design. I believe it could be done and if the nation has a will to do it we can. But it will mean putting plans on hold for manned exploration of space off for a full generation...Something I don't think the public is expecting.

Short sightedness on the part of several Presidential Administrations, as well as entrenched complacency at NASA, have left us out of the running in the global space race. China, Japan, India, and the EU all have space agencies that are actively pursuing projects. Our own JPL and other private agencies are doing great unmanned space exploration... But as a nation we are falling behind in the manned space flight area...With our resources currently and rightly positioned in the War on Terror, I doubt that much money will end up appropriated to space research in the next few years...

So was my Father's work in vain? I think not. For all around me I see the benefits of scientific advancement. We enjoy the lives that we do and all the things that make our lives easier because of research. Lets move forward, both in space and in the laboratory to learn all that we can about the world around us. Learning new things is the best gift we can give to the next generation.