Finale for Final Frontier
Atlantis, our last space shuttle, landed safely today. This marks the end of a journey, but tragically it also puts an end to a dream--the dream of a new frontier for us to explore and for which to build technologies and concentrate educational efforts.
In closing down shop and now depending, ironically, on Russia to ferry our Astronauts into space, in giving up on building a permanent colony on the moon and dropping George W's plan to go to Mars we are guilty of an immense failure of both will and vision.
The Biblical Book of Proverbs says that, "without vision the people perish." (29:18) Well, we reached for the stars, not knowing what we would find. We got to space. We landed on the moon and now we just don't have the will to continue the journey. We are low on money. True. But we are lower in ambition, courage and vision.
We reached into space and followed the vision of John Kennedy in creating a goal of landing a man on the moon and bringing him home safely within the decade of the 60s. Yes, it was part of a space race, a subset of the arms race with the Soviet Union. Sure it was about power and prestige as well as pure science. But it spurred education in math and science. It employed countless people in creating our hi-tech world. Well beyond the cliché that all we got from it was Tang, we also got remote monitoring that is used in medically tracking patients, miniaturization of computers and countless alloys, plastics and composites that we use in everything from low tech building to the highest tech of electronics.
Imagine Columbus reaching the New World, and after four round trips that brought back only souvenirs, having old Europe say, "Well, there's nothing really new over there. Potatoes and tomatoes and chocolate are all nice, but it's an awfully long and dangerous trip to get them. It isn't India and we just can't see the cost benefits." This is what we have done.
This is not a battle between space and education. This is about how we bring people together to value education, to dream big dreams, to coalesce around a common vision and to reach for the stars.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
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