|
Page A2 The Joan De Arc Crusader / Monday, July 20, 2009 Front Page A1 / Sports A3 / Nostalgia A4 / Crossword A5
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire
Making the case for a quick race
into space This being the 40th anniversary of humanity’s first stroll on the moon, the editorial board of the Crusader has been busy conducting extensive research, analyzing data, consulting the experts, and thinking long and hard about the future of manned space travel and the exploration of space in general. Okay, to be a bit more precise, we got together in the parking lot yesterday afternoon and kicked around a few ideas over a six-pack of Bud. It should first be noted that this newspaper has a long history of enthusiastic support for the space program. Hell, we even liked Skylab. However, somewhere along the way, the whole enterprise seems to have gotten off track. The glorious manned missions of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo have given way to the curiously boring International Space Station, a procession of unmanned planetary probes, and a rapidly aging space shuttle fleet that should have been mothballed long ago. Granted, interplanetary probes like Pioneer, Voyager, and Cassini-Huygens have drastically increased our knowledge of the solar system, and the shuttle program has made possible some remarkable successes, such as the magnificent Hubble Space Telescope. But the romance and human drama of astronauts risking their lives exploring the extraordinarily dangerous environment of space have been largely abandoned. Of course, this is not difficult to understand. The tragic losses of shuttles Challenger and Columbia have provided stark reminders of the substantial risks involved in manned flight and somewhat dampened the public’s appetite for such missions. Meanwhile, robotic spacecraft have become increasingly sophisticated and effective in their explorations of the cosmos. So why even bother sending actual people up into the ether? Well, for one thing, we believe that the ultimate destiny of our species is to colonize space. The final frontier and all that. By definition, such a future requires manned space flight, and plenty of it. Yet we should also be quick to note all the incredible technology that has resulted from the manned space program: miniaturized computers, advanced rocket science, historic medical breakthroughs, workable fuel cells, integrated circuitry, and sweet delicious Tang, to name but a few. Perhaps the most forbidding problem here is the public’s limited attention span. By the time the final Apollo landing took place in 1972, Americans had quite frankly lost interest in the whole thing. Consider that stark fact for a moment – in the space of just three short years, the most unbelievable technological achievement in human history had grown mundane and boring for the majority of the population. The solution? Quite simple. Ignore the public. So let’s get on with it then. Back to the moon and then on to Mars, ASAP. Remember, we have a scant two centuries to go before we’re supposed to have warp speed, phasers, transporters, and Vulcans and stuff.
________________________________________________________________
LETTERS
Thank you for not being dead Really got your attention with that subject line, huh? But really. The fact that you, your website, and many members of not only your family but old neighborhood friends and enemies ARE STILL VERTICAL. Well, that really pleases me, since I've had to put far too many friends under a rock somewhere, and those that are still alive suffer from CRS ("Can't Remember Shit"). Your (ostensibly insignificant to most) report on the "travels of the Amber Inn sign" posed questions that I'm always asking and rarely getting replies too. God Bless you for bringing that "holy grail" back to Arizona. I've never been in the Amber Inn. Never even had a "life-moment" like you at 17 coming of legal drinking age and going there with your brother and friends. When I lived in Phoenix (1958 through 1963: The Golden Years of Wallace & Ladmo, and then 1975 through 1981: The Golden Years of Hang Gliding, a first apartment at the then brand-new, fresh studio Smoke Tree Apartments in Metrocenter), I was a TOTAL TEETOTALER. I never even got drunk until well into the 1980s. This was partly the result of my homemade philosophy that I deemed "TOTAL VISION," but mostly because of my hang gliding (at Shaw Butte & Merriam Crater). Similar to what Chuck and Garret (Tom) did, I also made a short movie in high school. It's now lost forever, having been confiscated by Coach Bourke, the Dean of Boys. It was a paraphrased cartoon of the old Chuck Connor's TV show called "The Rifleman." We just did the 60 second opening to the show, with a twist. The Rifleman comes out onto Main Street, Westworld, all square-jawed and looking steely-eyed directly into the camera. At the end of the street, three saloon girls approach him threateningly. The music (the actual soundtrack from the show's theme) reaches its crescendo.... and then Chuck whups out his weapon, "fires"... and leaves the girls knocked-over (and probably knocked-up) at the end of the street, all with that trademark stare and then smile of "THE RIFLEMAN." Anyways. Thanks for being alive and considerate enough to remember and write about the lives and activities that were so important to us BACK IN THE DAY.
Regards,
Jerry Foisel
Thanks, Jerry. We too are very pleased that we are not yet dead. – Ed.
The Crusader welcomes your letters at jdacrusader@aol.com
________________________________________________________________
In search of lost priorities
I'm typing this column on a little notebook computer, as the flat screen television across the room beams a reality TV program into the family room in high definition and stereo. The Wii console above the tube is throbbing with a cool blue light, indicating the receipt of a new email, or more likely a recommended software update. All of these things are fairly ordinary trappings of the modern middle class household, certainly nothing special by today's standards. It's a safe bet, however, that the technology we take so much for granted now would be virtually non-existent were it not for a challenge accepted by the American people nearly fifty years ago, the quest to put a man on the moon and return him safely home. It's difficult to imagine, given the current political landscape, that such an undertaking was ever considered possible. It took considerable sacrifice, as measured by the significant fraction of our Gross National Product that went into paying for this adventure. Folks nowadays don’t seem to want to pony up the taxes for investments in even such things as education or a strong healthcare system, let alone manned spaceflight. I suppose they’re more concerned with saving up for their next, even bigger screen television. We didn’t have a big screen, high definition, or even a color set to witness that climactic moment forty years ago today when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the lunar surface. It was the realization of a dream we were certain was within our grasp, and with such faith that it could hardly have failed. We sat spellbound in front of the grainy black and white images of this alien landscape, certain that we were witness to the beginning of a whole new era. In a way we were right, since within a few years the space program would dwindle away to a mere shadow of its former self, a victim of its own habitual success. Still, in solving the technical issues required to achieve this amazing feat, we laid the foundation of a decades-long technological and fiscal dominance over our planet that remains arguably unparalleled in history. We are so saturated with the scientific fruits of this labor that we barely recognize them, but they most certainly are there. Sadly, as our investments in science and engineering have faltered, so it also goes with the rewards. We fall increasingly behind many other countries now in our ability to develop and manufacture innovative new products. The Saturn V launch vehicle is undoubtedly the single most complex and advanced machine ever conceived or built by man. The closest thing we have to compare with its success in modern times is what …the iPod? That’s just sad. We need to embrace bigger challenges than mere entertainment products if we hope to regain even a fraction of our former glory. I grew up smack dab in the middle of the space race, and am now at that age when I begin to increasingly wonder what has happened to our priorities as a country. I have serious doubts as to our ability to ever regain the will to repeat our past successes, let alone eclipse them. I suspect that we have lost the power to achieve sufficient focus at a time when our lives are so dominated by political discord. I can only hope and pray that the generations of my children and grandchildren have the wisdom and courage to prove me wrong.
In the spirit of full disclosure, the author has been working in the space biz for nearly twenty years and likes to pretend he’s a rocket scientist. Devotees of Ayn Rand are welcome to send their anti-tax rants to Chuck in c/o the Crusader, where they will be carefully filed in the appropriate receptacle. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________JDA
|
