Moon

On the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing I have to wonder if we will extend as much zeal to our celebrations on December 14, 2012. I don’t know. I do know that if we don’t commemorate man’s abandoning of the moon with as much verve as we are expending on his arrival to its surface then we are, in point of fact, a fat lot of hypocrites … but perhaps any number of calender dates could have illustrated that just as well.

That is man. We could have the universe but don’t. Having the universe might require a commitment to something other than bread and circus at the public trough. It might demand striving for a goal that doesn’t buy the politicians their votes with our money and our dreams. An ideal that doesn’t fit so easily into the group think readily demanded by three word slogans. That is, perhaps, why man’s adventures with the moon died with only twelve having set foot there. The moonshot was never pursued for anything other than bread and circus, and once the flag had been planted and a picture had been taken there wasn’t much need for anything else. And while it was probably plenty worthwhile to reach that destination before the Soviets I also have to wonder what would have happened had there been an actual pursuit of manned space exploration by this country; if Kennedy had really been the champion of “the new frontier” that we are assured he was; if our leaders had real courage, vision and those things in enough measure to have put away Von Braun’s chemical tinker toys and picked up Taylor and Dyson’s fission pulse drive.  Perhaps in 1972, instead of bidding farewell to the moon, we would have been establishing a permanent colony on Mars . . . or skating across the rings of Saturn.