What would you want for your children??? "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It’s five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before." Captain James T. Kirk This is the opening scene of an uber popular sci-fi show “Star Trek”. Various spin off and movies have spawn from this original 1966 series on NBC. In the times of Kennedy announcing the race to space, we needed a dream, we needed a vision, we needed a show that could expand our thoughts of space and form ideas that are impressionable and timeless. Its been over 50 years since the show first aired and there are still showing episodes from it on TV. That must say something about who we are, and what we believe in. It shows that not only are we able to spend over 50 years creating a show about space exploration, but we will forever be curious about the inhabitants of space and other planets. I mean look up at the infinite amount of stars, could we be the only one? I would like to think not, and if you do think that we are the only planet with life and civilization, don’t we need to reach out there and stake our claims. Looking at the launch site you would be amazed to know that just some twenty years ago this place was bursting with excitement and full of spectators who drove across states and traveled from distant places to view and experience a space launch. This site is now overly vegetated, the warm sun of Tampa has only given life to the lush vegetation that overruns the concrete and has started to grow within cracks and crevices. The monolith launch site at Cape Canaveral has only a decommissioned rocket there to stimulate tourism and generate income from tours. It’s a sad and powerful site, to think that not long ago, American astronauts were strapped in and hurled into space. Now this memory of a time where space travel was our unified dream has died. The people of America are at a loss. The children and our future of tomorrow are now beggars of dreams and will have to find the words to humble themselves to the Russian government and pay a fee so expensive that the amount tripled in the last year. Im talking about the fee of 70 million dollars per seat for American astronauts to become space bound. To think less than 20 years ago we were only dependent upon our own motivations to get into space, now we are second rate, second bill and second class to a former communist nation. Imagine a conversation between a couple Chinese astronauts and the leader of China… Astronaut 1 “We will show them, those stupid Americans, when we get this payload to the moon we will control this planet.” Astronaut 2 “Ha ha, we already control the economy, soon our grip will be on those scum and they will have to bow and salut to us.” Leader Xi Jinping(president of China) “yes ,yes, yes, it is a matter of time, we cannot allow the public to know of our latest plans, this mission is top priority and will be kept very discreet. The time of our people is soon, and soon the world will know of our power.” Astronaut 1 “Those Americans I hate them and their Facebook, their internet and their leader Obama. He is a fool. Soon the Americans will have no choice but to disband and join our Communist party, and if they don’t then our Moon base will have the power to cripple them and thwart their attempts to stop us.” Astronaut 2 “ They cannot stop us, our lasers will soon be in place.” Xi Jinping “Our time is soon, we have the most people and soon, soon, they will know our power.” Astronaut 2 “You already said that sir,…” Xi Jinping “ I know but it sounds so good I had to say it twice…hahahahaha|” Astronaut 1 & 2 “Hahahahahahahaa” It might sound like something from a movie, but everyday that NASA is not the very top of priority we fall behind, and soon, the global leader that China is, they will be able to surpass and quite possibly be the first nation to gain and maintain a moon base. It is speculated that the first country to control the moon, will control Earth. Coming in at 17.7 billion in 2014 the NASA budget only ranks 6th in the budget expense of the United States. The problem being that the missions themselves are far more expensive than most programs in the US government. You would be hard pressed to find figures of numbers of the actual amount that NASA receives annually via private donations. Take into mind that we could already afford to support NASA, imagine the 850 billion dollar bailout, is quoted to be more than the entire 50 year run of NASA’s budget(Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on the show Real Time with Bill Maher). Its said that we do have the money just the distribution of our monies is now not very appreciative of NASA and the space program. We have been dreaming of space far longer than the space program has been developed in the 50s. Poets, musicians, writers and scholars alike have pondered the various questions of how we as mankind can venture to the stars. Most people get their space fill from movies that have explored the very nature of mankind, to explore and understand. Movies give us a visual and audible experience from at home or at the theatre. Classics such as: Alien(1986), 2001: A space odyssey(1968) to Star Wars Episode V: The empire strikes back(1980) have refueled our dreams and aspirations to travel to distant places. Unfortunately people such as the President(Obama) have not the same dreams as the people he serves. In 2014 a hefty cut to the budget of NASA will all but quell the dreams of space that once were prevelant in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s even the early years of the 90s. In the last 50 years the United States has fallen behind other developed countries in the International assessment of Science and Math. The young kids aren’t as interested in space and the hardcore science and math it takes to get there as they were in the 50s-60s when the race for space was announced. Our best students fall short of other countries best students, and they say we are world leaders. I guess having the biggest and most guns is what leads this planet and if you ask me that is sad. I believe the real controversy lies in other countries catching up with technology in other fields , such as robotics and medicines , not to mention military warfare. We just have to be the best at any cost. If that means making little Billy believe that war is more important than space, then I find myself at a very painful “hoo raa”. I would think that the current budget is in reflection to what America is now, we are the bully of nations, we are fighting wars where we are not directly affected by them. We have become the cult leaders of democracy and at any cost will overthrow or destroy any regime that doesn’t believe in our way, if you could point out to me how this differs from Fashisism then I would like to hear. Whatever happened to the commericals on tv talking about the joys and wonders of Space Missions. What happened to the days that 5th graders sold boxes upon boxes of chocolate bars in order to try to win a chance to be able to goto Space Camp. What happened to the days of David Bowie narrating with music a “Space Oddity”. What happened to the stoners that got around and blazed and pretended that they were space cowboys as they sang along with “the Joker”. I will tell you what happened, skeptics and cynics to the likes of the band REM with the song of “Man on the moon” in which the fact that we landed on the moon was joked about and considered a great conspiracy. I could imagine how the early pioneer astronauts must think of the song by REM. I would hate to think that precious money is being spent on wars trying to turn nations into our image of freedom, when in fact, after we tear down and rebuild their governments, that people call us the real terrorists as they burn American flags. I always thought we were an independent nation, where have we fallen from that grace, where is it just to say that we are free when our sons , daughters, and fathers die fighting wars that have been going on for hundreds of years and will probably perpetuate until the fall of mankind. If anything I would think that we need to be able to separate ourselves from the rest of this uncivilized world and spread our reach to distant planets and moons. I would think that with the infinite possibilities of space that if we colonized Mars first that countries such as China and Russia would probably set their sites on somewhere else. Isn’t something of our own what we have sought since the American revolution. If we would be the world leaders that we would claim to be we would be leading the world in education, medicine and space exploration. I would think that this time of being a world cop is getting expensive and more and more deadly. I would think to become a world leader of something that would actually inspire others to follow our steps would be the solution to worlds problems. Sure there are programs that still support NASA such as the Planetary Society, but I want you to do a little investigation and ask someone that is of enough age to tell you how the space program was in the 60s and 70s. It once unified our nation with a single dream. Has to come to the point where the youth of this nation just doesn’t care about space anymore, have we traded in our calculators and physics in for a controller to play “Call of duty”. It makes me so sick, that I don’t think that I can continue writing anymore due to the graphic nature of language that is bursting to come out of me due to frustration. With that in mind I ask you a question…”Is this world bettered by crushing regimes or better by creating dreams.” “Dream on my little lovers of science and space out there, we may be fewer and fewer each day, but with persisitence and patience we can achieve the things soon that once were just blueprints and dreams.” Thank you Kelly M Donlin
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 01:59:34 +0000