As we look back on the moon landing forty years ago, I can’t help but think what a bunch of pathetic sissies we are. Sixty-six years after the Wright brothers’ plan flew a couple feet, we made it to the moon. In the forty years since that, we’ve done crap. Yeah, the new iPhone now has cut and paste, but there is a whole universe out there to explore and conquer and we don’t even really have a plan on what to do with it.
The sad fact is we can’t nuke the moon because we still need the moon to practice landing on so we can go to other planets. I dream of the day we’re like, “Screw you, moon! We don’t need you any more!” and launch a barrage of missiles at it, but we’re far from that point.
So why do we suck? Some of it is we’re risk averse. Today it’s unimaginable to strap a couple people on a giant rocket and try to land on the moon using less computing power than the average person has on his cellphone. While we had a giant war going on! Most of it I think is just our general sissiness. We’re too focused on little dinky problems like global warming to think big about the human race. Even conservatives will be like, “We spend too much because of Obama to think about space.”
Well guess what: Space is the solution to these problems.
As soon as you land on another planet, we no longer have to worry about global warming, poverty, or war because that will now be some other planet’s problem. As for Obama, we just say, “Screw you, hippie!” and start a new libertarian society on Mars like from some Heinlein novel.
So, we need a plan. I don’t want my kids to have to watch old documentaries about the Apollo missions to be inspired by space; we need new heroes and challenges. I don’t know if we have to boost private industry into space exploration or what, but we need to do something and make it a priority. It doesn’t matter if it makes since economically or what-not; it’s a matter of pride. It’s a matter of reaching our potential as the human race. We’ll always have these Earth-problems, and the only solution is to go somewhere else.
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