If our children no longer care about space exploration, it’s not because they’re tuning out. In recent decades, what has our space program given this country, and our children, to be proud of?
The most memorable events I can think of are misfires and failures—the tragedies of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles, and the romantic crime drama of Lisa Nowak, an American astronaut gone bad.
I find it mind-boggling that four decades after the 1969 moon landing, we have taken no next step.
In 2009, we can benefit from four more decades of scientific research and technological advancements. Another moon landing and even a journey beyond should not represent the challenges that they seem to do. We continue to act as though we’ve never tried this before.
This nation has lost something. Call it focus. Call it grit and determination. Call it a reality check.
We see how China’s energy efficiency programs are catching up to and may soon overtake ours. We see how the current financial crisis reveals the extent to which our country has been living an illusion for close to 30 years.
And we see the increasing polarization of our political system, where we are more likely to identify ourselves as Democrats or Republicans than as Americans. Will it really be a surprise if Russia or China reaches the moon, before we do?
We cannot blame our children or call it a pity that they have only the faintest regard for the country’s space program without reflecting on our own role as the adult leaders they look to for an example.
I was not around during the 1960s but that decade signifies to me a time when an amazing spirit propelled the country forward and led us to achieve unbelievable things simply because we believed we could.
Whether it was participating in the counterculture, or turning the world of music upside down if you were the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, or supporting Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, such events drew communities together, got us moving and made us proud of who we were.
America’s narrative about our space program’s earliest days also hearkens back to the 1960s and begins with President Kennedy’s declaration of the impossible — that man would walk on the moon by the end of the decade. Following the collective sound of a million stunned jaws hitting the ground at once, we rose to the occasion and did just that. It was one of our nation’s proudest moments.
Today, there is no shortage of visionaries challenging us to achieve the impossible. Pick your hero and the issues: Tom Friedman and green energy, Al Gore and the environment or Jeffrey Sachs and the end of world poverty.
Yet, even when the government does attempt to move forward, it does so timidly and there is no constant hand-wringing, political maneuvering and empty sentiments.
If our leaders can’t demonstrate the conviction, ambition and can-do attitude that once made us the envy of the world, what can we expect of our children? If kids are no longer interested in space, whose fault is it? What grand space events have our leaders provided around which we can rally?
Sustainability is what this century needs to be about if the human race hopes to survive in the long term. Yet we have so dutifully ravaged our planet that our ability to rectify the damage remains in question.
It could be that we may need a space program sooner than we think. Our leaders’ lack of vision should be the object of our pity more than the indifference of our children. That is our biggest tragedy.
As I mentioned before, I missed the 1960s. And I missed the moon landing. It was only by a few years, but the fact remains: like those children we say no longer care about a space program I’m still waiting for a time and a reason when I should care, too.
Joe Kovacs is a grants and communications specialist at Adams County School District 14 in Commerce City. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
