ASHTON ELLIS
Staff Writer
“Remember when the whole world looked up.” These words appear as the tagline to the new film, “In the Shadow of the Moon.” Set for release this month, the documentary features interviews with every living member of the Apollo Moon missions. They recall the crowning technological achievement of the twentieth century: landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. These words should also challenge Americans to wonder why the world stopped looking up. Nearly 30 years have passed since Neil Armstrong claimed the lunar surface “for all mankind.”
At that moment, Armstrong stood at the vanguard of humanity’s greatest physical extension. Everyone on Earth knew that his mission was more than an American achievement; it was an expression of human excellence. If a country could create the technology to send a man to the Moon in only 10 years, imagine the expectations for the next decade.
And yet, after achieving a navigational feat beyond Magellan’s wildest dreams, America withdrew. Machines replaced men as the explorers of choice. The nation lost itsnerve.
This was not the only time a civilization accomplished greatness and then chose to leave the future behind.
History teaches repeatedly that being first fails to guarantee lasting significance. The Chinese were the first non-“Indians” to reach South America. Erik the Red’s Norsemen settled the eastern coast of Canada centuries before Columbus reached the Caribbean. In each case, an entire civilization chose the comforts of home over certain hardship and possible improvement in a new world.
By the time the last Apollo mission returned home in December 1972, the world had forgotten why it looked up. The missions felt routine, their purpose unclear. Beating the Soviet Union meant fear could no longer drive development. America needed a new challenge and the world needed inspiration. The logical next steps were to reduce costs and increase access to space travel while continuing to push the boundaries of exploration. Instead, the space shuttle was born.
Thanks to the shuttle program, sending humans beyond Earth’s atmosphere became an overpriced indulgence – a weeklong cruise above the world for a select few. It is hard to believe that between 1959 and 1979 a nation could go from orbiting Earth and standing on the moon only to go in circles again. Then again, that’s the result when government budget writers are involved. They see science providing space travel as a luxury, rather than a necessity, for further improvement.
Slipping the bonds of Earth should be more than a government employee’s pastime. America should reignite the engine of exploration. It should launch its people, industry, and government on a new Age of Discovery that uses the footprints on the Moon as a springboard to Mars.
Humanity benefits when a nation commits itself to funding exploration. Drastic improvements in technology, health, and wealth are realized because exploration creates a need for increases in speed and value.
Five-hundred years ago the introduction of spices from India led to better meat preservation and longer lives. Today, a move to America’s arid Southwest can greatly improve the health of a seasonal allergy sufferer. A generation from now, life on a Moon colony with less gravity could ease the restrictions imposed on people in wheelchairs.
These things are possible. The techniques necessary to sustain humans on an extended space trip are similar conceptually to those faced on a long sea voyage. Water seems routine because a series of bold innovators had the courage to create new techniques for a life without land. Space exploration is the next great challenge.
In a thousand years people will look back on the American moment and say one of two things. They will either marvel that Americans were the greatest innovators since the Romans or wonder how such an uninspired society summoned the courage to visit the Moon. There is still time to ensure America makes the most of its opportunity.
09-13-2007