The Final Frontier

There aren’t an overabundance of moments when I feel proud to be an American, but I can’t help but feel patriotic when either attending a baseball game or watching a Space Shuttle launch.

Few government programs have captured the imagination of the American public like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA has been responsible for some of the greatest American and human accomplishments. In 1962 NASA put the first American into space (Alan Shepard) and less a decade later, they put a man on the moon per a bull-headed mandate by John F. Kennedy.

News anchors and reporters such as Walter Cronkite played a significant role in making the space program and the moon landing a national event. Great reporting can make an historical event more significant and more real to the public.

I should think that I would have liked to report on the early days of the space program. The potential for the exploration of space seemed almost limitless back then. The early space program was almost like an epic saga of American adventure, ingenuity and sheer determination. And at pinnacle are the six moon landings before the Apollo program was finally scrapped in 1972.   

Now in 2011 the American space program has lost much of its public appeal and much of its public funding. The space shuttle has been retired and with next to no budget (thanks, Obama) NASA has no plans to develop a new spaceship. I know that space exploration is expensive, but I do not believe it can be argued that NASA is a waste of taxpayer money. It’s true that NASA is no Federation Star Fleet (it has yet to find new life or new civilizations) but its existence allows people to look up at the night sky and dream of a future where humans may one day settle in the far reaches of the galaxy (like Star Wars).

The NPR website has an awesome tribute to the Space Shuttle program as well as some speculation into the future of humans in space.