Every morning when I log on at work I like to check the Weather Channel to find out what is going on. This morning when I logged on it was showing the first close-up photographs ever taken of the planet Mercury. I wanted to call over to my co-workers, "come here, you need to see this," but of course they wouldn't understand how significant this was. So I just sat there in stunned silent wonder.
Most of the people here on this forum seem to be pretty young, so you've grown up in an era where space exploration and spaceflight seem rather routine, almost humdrum. Except when a disaster happens, like Challenger and Columbia. But when I was a baby the Russians rocked the world by announcing they had just put the first artificial satellite into space. Not long after that they sent a dog, and then a man, Yuri Gagarin.
It is hard for me to describe what the world was like back in the late 1950's early 1960's, long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The phrase "Evil Empire" didn't come into use until the 1980's when President Reagan coined it, but I'd say it was a fair description of what Americans thought and were taught to think about Russia. Russia was the bogeyman, pure and simple. And now they were in space! Something had to be done.
I was just entering elementary school when President Kennedy made his historic announcement that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. The Space Race was on! Soon, along with diagrams of the solar system, new terms began entering my consciousness. Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and of course Project Apollo. Cereal boxes featured astronauts and spacecraft. I followed each launch avidly. I remember sitting in front of our grainy black-and-white TV watching the Gemini spacewalks. This was the stuff of science fiction. We were going to the Moon!
During all that time it never occurred to me that I could be an astronaut. Back then that dream was for little boys. White boys, to be specific. Only they were permitted big dreams. Girls had to be content to be on the sidelines. Nobody ever talked about women who did great things. It sound hard to believe now, but the women who were out there doing big things were invisible. I never heard of them when I was a child. So there were no role models at all.
But now the dream of space is open to everyone, not just Russian or white American boys. And Russians and Americans are no longer enemies, but partners. Back in 1963 that was incredible. That is why I do not understand when I hear people complain about the money that is spent on space exploration and how it could be put to better use helping the poor. My family was not "poor" but money was scarce. Had Kennedy or Johnson cancelled the space program it would have helped us not one bit. We would not have seen any of that money. When you grow up having to hear that you can't do something because "we don't have the money," it does something to your soul. When "we don't have the money" is allowed to end conversations, it teaches defeat. But when "so let's figure out how to get it" is added to the conversation, it teaches empowerment. Unfortunately that kind of empowerment was sadly lacking in my life. Instead of dreaming big dreams, I learned to shut them down.
So let's keep the space program alive. We humans need to dream big dreams. If someone had told me back in elementary school when we were learning about the solar system that one day I would go to work, sit down at my desk, and turn on a machine that would show me actual photographs of a distant planet, I would have said that they were dreaming.
Most of the people here on this forum seem to be pretty young, so you've grown up in an era where space exploration and spaceflight seem rather routine, almost humdrum. Except when a disaster happens, like Challenger and Columbia. But when I was a baby the Russians rocked the world by announcing they had just put the first artificial satellite into space. Not long after that they sent a dog, and then a man, Yuri Gagarin.
It is hard for me to describe what the world was like back in the late 1950's early 1960's, long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The phrase "Evil Empire" didn't come into use until the 1980's when President Reagan coined it, but I'd say it was a fair description of what Americans thought and were taught to think about Russia. Russia was the bogeyman, pure and simple. And now they were in space! Something had to be done.
I was just entering elementary school when President Kennedy made his historic announcement that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. The Space Race was on! Soon, along with diagrams of the solar system, new terms began entering my consciousness. Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and of course Project Apollo. Cereal boxes featured astronauts and spacecraft. I followed each launch avidly. I remember sitting in front of our grainy black-and-white TV watching the Gemini spacewalks. This was the stuff of science fiction. We were going to the Moon!
During all that time it never occurred to me that I could be an astronaut. Back then that dream was for little boys. White boys, to be specific. Only they were permitted big dreams. Girls had to be content to be on the sidelines. Nobody ever talked about women who did great things. It sound hard to believe now, but the women who were out there doing big things were invisible. I never heard of them when I was a child. So there were no role models at all.
But now the dream of space is open to everyone, not just Russian or white American boys. And Russians and Americans are no longer enemies, but partners. Back in 1963 that was incredible. That is why I do not understand when I hear people complain about the money that is spent on space exploration and how it could be put to better use helping the poor. My family was not "poor" but money was scarce. Had Kennedy or Johnson cancelled the space program it would have helped us not one bit. We would not have seen any of that money. When you grow up having to hear that you can't do something because "we don't have the money," it does something to your soul. When "we don't have the money" is allowed to end conversations, it teaches defeat. But when "so let's figure out how to get it" is added to the conversation, it teaches empowerment. Unfortunately that kind of empowerment was sadly lacking in my life. Instead of dreaming big dreams, I learned to shut them down.
So let's keep the space program alive. We humans need to dream big dreams. If someone had told me back in elementary school when we were learning about the solar system that one day I would go to work, sit down at my desk, and turn on a machine that would show me actual photographs of a distant planet, I would have said that they were dreaming.
