We choose to go to the moon in this
decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because
they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the
best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we
are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which
we intend to win…" — John F. Kennedy, 1962
NASA's grand plan to return to the moon…is about to
vanish with hardly a whimper. (Obama's budget) is also a death knell for the Ares 1 rocket,
NASA's planned successor to the space shuttle — The Washington Post, 2010
China's "efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the
prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the
Mideast for a reliance on… China." — New York Times, 2010
Tell me we're not a nation in decline. Not relative decline in the peaceful and prosperous world that a generation of American leaders worked to build from the ashes of World War II and all its poisonous causes. Absolute decline. The night I saw Neil Armstrong step onto the surface of the moon, I couldn't have imagined our country would be here 40 years hence. I was certain we would at least have bases on Mars, if not have embarked on some deep-space exploration. But, then, during the great panic of the fall of 2008, I thought we might actually turn away from an economy based on sprawl and financial speculation, face reality as a nation, and get busy making the Great Transition to address the Great Disruption that has only just begun.
And you say I'm not an optimist.
The decision to abandon American manned space flight to "the private sector," means essentially abandoning it as anything but being a rich person's toy, although there will surely be some kind of financial swindle along the way, that being our major economy today. NASA has been severely underfunded for decades and, so, like Amtrak, our politicians are stunned that it has not done better. Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin told the Washington Post, "It means that essentially the U.S. has decided that they're not going
to be a significant player in human space flight for the foreseeable
future. The path that they're on with this budget is a path that can't
work."
This does not mean humans will abandon space flight. Russia will continue, strapped as it is, as a matter of national prestige. India and especially China will be the future of humanity's odyssey to the stars. China will be this because it is something a great superpower does. And it must be done because sooner or later — sooner, the way we're going — this planet will become uninhabitable. In the meantime, manned space flight will produce a host of advances and advantages to its explorers that we can't imagine (after all, we're content with a new iPad!)
The space skeptics will tut that Project Apollo was an outgrowth of the Cold War. That's partly true. But anyone who doesn't understand that we're in a struggle with China, and that manned space flight will be part of it, is engaging in magical thinking. The struggle may not lead to the brink of nuclear war…may not. But it is a struggle nonetheless, and one in which America is on track to be such a net loser that future generations will curse us for what we have done. It's important also to recall that when NASA was at its zenith, America had a real economy. Wall Street was boring, with capital markets that provided money to create and sustain productive businesses, and while the rich did well, it wasn't at the expense of middle-class wages, pensions and security.
No, Obama's decision on NASA is not that of a realist but of a defeatist (and his opponents are worse, nihilists, opportunists and/or the precursors of a very scary theo-fascist future). It fits a larger pattern. No universal health care, although every other advanced nation has it and not even their conservative politicians would dare adopt an American model. No robust effort to quickly rebuild the nationwide passenger rail network and get building, rather than studying, real high-speed corridors, even though every densely populated advanced nation has these, too. Saving GM and Chrysler to build the same old cars, rather than retooling them for 21st century transportation. Desperately trying to hold up and restart the old sprawl economy, which is done, kaput. Keeping company with the financial, corporate and media elite that are perpetuating our economic emasculation, political corruption and general ignorance. Failing to use this recessionary intermission to refit suburbia for a high-cost energy future. Perpetuating wars and unnecessary military spending that make China smile. A nation that defeated Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union is now afraid — under pressure from the real-estate interests — to try a couple of foreign criminals in New York City.
And, as Jim Kunstler writes of the tea-baggers, "They are our future, these yeast people and mudskippers, because the
intelligent minority of this nation lacks the one thing that animates
intelligence in the service of reality, and that is the courage to tell
the truth."
Now all in the political and media elite are deficit hawks. The deficit wasn't an issue when George W. Bush was creating most of it out of Bill Clinton's surpluses. Dick Cheney was explicit that deficits didn't matter. Until the Republicans were out of power. Now they, with the help of the Fox News and talk radio megaphone, have been able to persuade ignorant but voting millions that their personal economic straits are because of the federal deficit. And the feckless, cowardly Democrats are going along. Of course, this is precisely the wrong thing to do in an economy that's the worst since the Depression, and worse in some ways. A spending "freeze" won't affect the military or the trillions in moral-hazard brewing help for Wall Street. It will merely cripple the efforts the government should be making to rebuild a productive economy, a 21st century infrastructure, the middle class and prepare for a future of discontinuity. One result will be an economy unable to pay off its creditors, a fact seemingly beyond the history-challenged American people.
So we choose not to go to the moon and not do the other things. Because they are hard. Because we can no longer organize the best of our energies and skills in the service of building a civilization. Because we live now by postponing our challenges. Because we think we can somehow regain our footing with just one more bubble, or more crapola subdivisions, or wider freeways to accommodate the magical hydrogen cars that aliens will deliver to us, or more Wal-Mart monopolies and their affect on wages, or "tightening our belts" in government so every place ends up like Arizona. Self-delusion — that's easy.
How sad. And despicable. Rent the series From the Earth to the Moon. Watch the whole thing. When I wasn't moved to tears by what my country had accomplished, I was sickened and horrified by what it had become.
I don’t know. I tend to think of the fantasy of space-travel as a projection of Manifest Destiny and the indulgent travel borne of cheap (in the short term) energy.
I think we need to profoundly change our relationship with this planet (and each other) before we so cavalierly entertain “escaping” it…
Just putting that out there.
One of the questions we don’t ask ourselves – for obvious reasons – is what kind of civilization we would like to be remembered for. America is not forever. Yet we behave as if the purpose of “now” is infantile gratification. So, we expend huge amounts of wealth on crap: SUVs with names like Armada, Yukon, and Denali. Or McMansions 50 miles from city centers. Or consumer items that require closets the size of a living room in a pre-war house.
We have no grand purpose besides that. And it fits with the overall intention of the ruling oligarchy that we amuse ourselves rather than build something worthy of a great civilization. Maybe we’re in the bread-and-circuses phase of our empire. As I watched the Grammy’s last night, I started hoping that phase quickly draws to a close.
Clearly, this enterprise or racket we call the United States of America has issues with ongoing maintenance. The overinvestment in suburbia, freeways, big-box shopping, and fast food is symptomatic of a dread disease. Once the diagnosis is made, it may be wise to start counting the days.
I’m not sure what to mourn. America’s promise was attained and we got fatter and stupider. Was that the point? Was it to hate the government for depriving us of even more pleasures? Was it to bankrupt ourselves with health-care costs and gasoline?
There are a few American cities where patriotism is not an abstract impulse but something tangible and vivid. I felt it in Chicago, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and New York. I can feel something close to that when hiking in Arizona’s wilderness. But Arizona, for all its beauty, is not something that makes me love an ongoing tradition. The tradition here is selling, taking, using, and scarring. We blew it. We could have loved this state for something other than our own idle pleasure. But we privatized the American Dream and we ended up losing the greatness that links past and future. It’s anyone’s game now and it’s late in the day.
soleri says: “One of the questions we don’t ask ourselves – for obvious reasons – is what kind of civilization we would like to be remembered for.”
I can think of at least a couple of reasons – just out of curiosity/fun, which, in your view, percolates up to “obvious”? (If you don’t mind my asking.)
“Now all in the political and media elite are deficit hawks. The deficit wasn’t an issue when George W. Bush was creating most of it out of Bill Clinton’s surpluses. Dick Cheney was explicit that deficits didn’t matter. Until the Republicans were out of power.”
Thank you, Mr. Talton, for addressing this. I wish the national media and even President Obama had the guts to ask the Republicans this simple question: “What is with your sudden fetish with the budget deficit and the national debt?”
I wish Rogue Columnist had the readership that Fox News captures …
Petro, I’d like to provoke a discussion about what is tangibly great about American culture. Talton chose the moon program but I was thinking more along the lines of our built environment – the cities, art, monuments, parks, and architecture. I bring it up because for all our wealth, we don’t really engage on that level anymore. Instead, we pour our wealth into private fantasies like cars and houses. And our political debate pivots around the seeming unfairness that people should give anything back to their country. It’s why taxes can only be cut. It’s why there are no national issues that galvanize the public imagination and hopes.
When I’m in a great city, I know why I love America. When I’m driving around Phoenix, I often wonder if love even exists. Yes, I should count my blessings but I want more.
I’m sorry, soleri, for being so unclear!
I had distilled your original statement:
“One of the questions we don’t ask ourselves – for obvious reasons – is what kind of civilization we would like to be remembered for.”
To this:
“There are obvious reasons why we don’t ask ourselves what kind of civilization we would like to be remembered for.”
And those (“why-we-don’t-ask”) reasons are the ones that perked my attention.
I didn’t mean to arouse the other sentiments but, just in passing, this DFH happens to share them. 😉
Jon,
Wish I had thought of rewriting JFK’s words.
That’s brilliant good stuff…
In regard to your other zinger:
“The decision to abandon American manned space flight to “the private sector,” means essentially abandoning it as anything but being a rich person’s toy, although there will surely be some kind of financial swindle along the way…”
Suggestion to all: Read Popular Sci’s recent article on the privatization of space:
https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/space-inc
Here is a key quote from the article: “Meanwhile, billionaire Robert Bigelow, the founder of Budget Suites of America, foresees a big demand for “space hotels” in the future and has already sent two prototype inflatable space habitats into space.”
A big demand?
From whom?
Joe-The-Crappy-American-Plumber in his three-legged Dodge?
Jon is right. This is the absolute inverse of the democratization of space. The Final Frontier’s new destiny has been redefined. It now will be the place where the rich will go to escape the malaise of global warming. And yes, you can bet your federal tax dollars will help fund these elite orbiting havens.
Am I the only one who is starting to wish the Cold War had never ended? Seriously. That Great Global Divide gave both sides “enemies,” which the human race so obviously needs to preform admirable and difficult tasks. The militarization of space would at least have prevented it from becoming a atmosphere-rending play toy for the rich.
Petro, I’m a DFH, too, and I share your misgivings about space exploration. I understand Talton’s nostalgia for a nation that was capable of doing great things but I’m not sure you can separate out the good hubris from the not-so-good.
By the time Reagan became president, this nation was in full retreat from ideas of collective greatness. We disavowed environmental concerns, social amelioration, and even communitarianism. Thus fragmented, American consciousness wallowed in self-pity and anger. Scapegoating became the rule of the day. We can’t do much if anything except play the victim.
American Exceptionalism took us to the moon and saved the world from totalitarians. It freed some minds from parochialism but it couldn’t save all of them. We met our limitations in Vietnam and met them again in Iraq. Try as we may, the transformative power of the American spirit is not all-encompassing. Having failed, we steadfastly refuse to learn. We insist on the sanctity of our myths and cannot grow up.
I have had that JFK quote running through my mind for about a week…
I understand, and agree with, the sentiments of the commenters above, except that I would re-state them a bit.
I prefer to think of myself as a champion of Civilization, not America. Patriotism is as bad as religion when it comes to banding some people together to be against others. I would embrace all people of all countries who share the same goals that Jon speaks about so well, and work against the interests of everyone who prefers idle-richness or returning to the Dark Ages. I suppose that has me banding with some against others, too, but it crosses artificial boundaries to collect all of like mind.
If America chooses not to be the leader of Civilization, others will take the role- more power to them. China may be the top candidate in terms of economy. The EU is leading in freedom, equality and health care.
I recently had a conversation in a bar with someone who said “You can’t tell me the US is not number one in everything” and he was right. I couldn’t tell him because he wouldn’t listen. He has no idea what is happening in other countries and his impression of America dates back to that day in 1969 when Kennedy’s promise was fulfilled. He hasn’t noticed any changes since then. (or at least not the same changes that I have noticed)
For those who say that America is the best country that has ever been, (without challenging that statement) I want ask “Does that make it the best that can ever be?”
For those who say similar things about Democracy, same question “Is it the best form of government possible or merely the best we have invented so far?”
I love the planet Earth, not just America. I love the life forms that inhabit it, not just humans of one culture or another. I love Civilization, not any individual country that shares it. I love reason and science and freedom since they are all required to make Civilization flourish.
(Insider reference warning) Arlo Southern, if you’re watching, Buford Gilbert may have found his voice again. Stay tuned.