On the Contrary

On this Sunday when I am sure the news stories will be full of the bailout and the debate, who stretched the truth the most, etc., I thought I might point out a couple of stories that might indicate why we need a change in direction, and make you wonder what we have been doing for the last 30 or 40 years.

I don’t know if you took note or not, but the Chinese launched two astronauts into space this week with a planned space walk for one of them this weekend.  They are on course to develop the capability to go to the moon and probably attempt to establish some form of presence there.  You remember the moon, that place we went to back in 1969 almost 40 years ago.  I remember it well.  I was in Navigator Training School in California and it was a warm July evening when I saw the first television pictures of “One small step for man….”.  It was amazing.  I remember going outside and looking up at the moon and thinking, “Wow.  They are up there right now.”  My idea of a relaxing evening was to pop some fish sticks and french fries (health food) in the oven (microwaves weren’t common then) and watch Star Trek on TV after a day of flying and trying to figure out where we were.  Now as I gazed up into the sky, we were taking the first steps to that great adventure.  Little did I know they would be our last significant steps for almost 40 years.

Some where in there we kind of lost our way.  We decided to think small and focus on the space station.  Now there have been some amazing accomplishments like the Hubble Telescope and our robot satellites to Mars and the outer solar system, but the dream of establishing a presence on the moon got pushed aside in the great “think small “world of government leadership that we entered into.  Now there are two bills in Congress (Washington Post) that demonstrate how thinking small imay be a very dangerous thing.

The first measure is a waiver of a law that forbids purchasing space and other sophisticated technology from nations, in this case Russia, that are deemed to be helping Iran and other “unfriendly” countries with nuclear programs.  Why would we want to waive this in the case of Russia?  We need them to get to the Space Station between 2010 and 2015 when we think we might have a replacement for the Space Shuttle.  Now one can question whether focusing our space program on the space station was a smart idea, or whether the reusable space shuttle was a smart idea, but we have been flying it for over 20 years and we have no replacement.  By law we must stop flying it in 2010 because, well it is getting old and dangerous.  In other words in all these years we have thought small, let our dream of the moon and beyond die, never funded a replacement for the shuttle, and now we are dependent on the Russians who have become a problem recently, as our only means to get to our space station.  The fact that the space shuttle was wearing out is not a surprise, but in our no tax, government is the problem leadership environment, we have done nothing and now we are dependent on the space program of the Russians.  This is not a good thing.

The other bill would prohibit NASA from taking any steps to make it impossible to resurrect the space shuttle fleet after 2010, when it is scheduled to be grounded.  In other words we are going to rethink using the space shuttle in those intervening years even though it may be at great risk to our astronauts because we simply have let our space program atrophy to nothing.  We have failed to plan and pay the bills for the future and some Americans may pay the ultimate price for our stupidity and small mindness by flying around in antiquated space junk.

Now some of you will say big deal, we have better things to spend our money on than the space program.  Okay, but the Chinese see the benefit of going to the moon and beyond and it will give them both a technological and military advantage over us.  Secondly, we spent $100 billion on the space station and now we have no way to get there.  We are totally dependent on the ever increasingly hostile Russians for access to our own space station.  Some great planning don’t you think?  We are the greatest nation in the world aren’t we?.

Just what did we do in those intervening years instead of spending money on research and development for space?  Did we establish a universal heath care system for our citizens like they have in other industrialized countries?  Did we invest in education and make college level education free like they do in the European Union?  Did we refocus our funding and effort on an alternative energy program to makes us the energy leaders in the world like they did in Denmark after the oil crisis in the 70’s?  Nope.  We cut taxes for the rich, believed in the fairy tale of flow down economics, left all our important and strategic decisions to the marketplace, while clutching our bibles and Ipods close to our breast in the belief that we are the chosen people.

So as you listen to the news shows on this Sunday morning about who was more truthful, who stretch the truth the most, who looked more Presidential, think about who really wants to set a new direction and that thinks just maybe government is the solution.  Think about who wants to think the big ideas about our future and who wants to let government lead in these endeavors instead of the marketplace, which has lead us into the abyss.  Think about who has a view of the future that is not rooted in the 20th century and who wants to shrink government and cut taxes one more time for the rich so that we will always be mired in backwater America as the very rich and the very poor.

It is funny how what seems like little stories on the back pages of the newspaper tell us all we need to know about what has happened to America.  It will be fun to visit the Chinese facility on the moon and marvel at their accomplishments.  Maybe they will share some of their technology with us.