To Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth In May of 1961, John F. Kennedy stood before Congress and challenged America to put a man on the moon within a decade, but he warned his fellow citizens, "If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all." Yesterday, Space Shuttle Columbia exploded over the Texas sky. The oldest of the fleet, Columbia's designers thought that the shuttle would be in a museum by now when they first built it. However, in the wake of the Challenger disaster and an increasingly uninterested public, NASA has been forced to do more with less, trying to maintain Kennedy's vision of the future of mankind with a smaller and smaller budget. NASA scrapped plans for a shuttle replacement when it was deemed too costly, instead focusing on "upgrades" to an already aging fleet of spacecraft that have always been problematic at best. The astronauts who died yesterday are qualified heroes in every sense, but so are the men and women who have flown the shuttle for over two decades as well as the men currently orbiting above us in the International Space Station, but as a public, we are not impressed with the heavens so much these days, and it is only when we fall in our endeavors to reach the sky, do we take an Icarusian interest in the space program. I am certain there will be much finger pointing in the days to come, once the mourning has worn off, but I believe that ultimately, the Columbia tragedy is the fault of the American people. NASA is so underfunded that they receive notices on teletype machines and are unable to replace many of the parts they use, because the companies that manufactured them have long ago gone out of business. There is a ride in Disneyworld where the ride vehicles have more onboard computing power than the shuttle. In my lifetime, no human being has left Low Earth Orbit. My friend Daryl writes that the space program in some ways defines America, but I say it does not. It defines a spirit of enterprise, exploration and hope that we as a society, simply do not value anymore. For one brief moment in the sixties, humankind saw itself beyond the scope of this small fragile planet. NASA has tried to keep this spirit burning, but the taxpayers of America (for we are a nation of taxpayers, not citizens) have starved that flame to an ember. Mankind's destiny is to be written in the stars, not on Earth. The seven who died Saturday on board STS-107 knew this and knew the risks involved. Their deaths while tragic, must not sway us from seeking out our future beyond the blue skies of Earth. The greatest way to honor them is not not to cast our eyes to the ground but to cast them into the heavens and see ourselves in them. Write to your congressperson. Tell them that you wish to see America renew it's commitment to the space program. Tell them you want to see humanity on Mars in your lifetime and that the risks and the peril only make the challenge that much more important. Before the shuttle took off, the brother of astronaut Dave Brown asked him what would happen if something went wrong. Dave turned to his brother and said, "'This program will go on -- it has to go on." Only if we stand together and say to our government that we too believe that it has to go on, will it happen.

posted by Japhy at 2/02/2003 02:55:00 PM || #