I grew up in the cultural afterglow of the Apollo program, weaned on Star Trek episodes, coming of age in the first Star Wars era. <\/p>\n
Okay, yes, I was Luke Skywalker two Halloweens in a row. And space still fascinates me. <\/p>\n
I know, I know. Vast distances and unimaginably hostile environments await humans outside of our safe terrestrial bubble.<\/p>\n
This gorgeous earth of ours is, literally, irreplaceable. <\/p>\n
But four decades after we briefly touched the moon, I remain convinced that some essential answers to basic human questions await us Up There.<\/p>\n
Secular mysticism? Yeah, there’s probably some of that.<\/p>\n
When I look through our family telescope in our back field in Westport, I’m experiencing what a lot of my neighbors must feel on Sunday morning when they settle into the pew.<\/p>\n
There is one significant difference though. <\/p>\n
If we find away to colonize and make practical use of the resources outside our atmosphere, it won’t be the product of divine intervention.<\/p>\n
We will have clawed our way into space through our own ingenuity, grit and curiosity. <\/p>\n
I think that spirit of exploration and possibility could prove invaluable in a society as restless as ours.<\/p>\n
Put bluntly, America needs a frontier.<\/p>\n
Obviously, there are some missing pieces. We need better practical reasons to go aloft. Tourism and a kind of Post-Apollo Manifest Destiny won’t cut it. <\/p>\n
Without better commercial pay-offs, the expense and danger will make space flight seem like the fantasies of a schoolboy on Halloween.<\/p>\n
We also need some radical new innovation, developing vehicles that use truly modern technology. <\/p>\n
The space shuttle fleet was built using 1970s concepts and materials. The “newest” shuttle, launched 15 years ago, was literally built using spare parts.<\/p>\n
To bring down the costs and dangers of space, we need to leapfrog out of the Carter Era. <\/p>\n
To pay for that kind of wholesale upgrade, we’d need some new priorities. And maybe that’s worth thinking about, too.<\/p>\n
The money we spent on the war in Iraq? That line-item alone would have allowed the U.S. to double NASA’s budget for the next half-century.<\/p>\n
Just imagine the places we might have gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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