The Moon: One Small Step For Man - One Giant Bill For America
Going to the moon again is causing far more controversy today
than it could have back in the sixties. Some Americans doubt we
can afford it and others are not sure they have seen the "giant
leap for mankind" that the first moon shot promised. It depends
on who you ask but don't dare ask me. I didn't think the first
moon landing had much significance for reasons that few people
share with me.
President Bush announced an ambitious plan to return to the moon
by 2013-15 near the birthplace of modern flight, Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina. The centenary of flight celebrations was held in
Kill Devil Hills in December of 2003 where the President
announced plans to allow NASA to offer up its best to the
effort. With funding from congress to supplement their 15.5
billion dollar existing budget NASA will have to do a great deal
of aggressive re-tooling and budget squeezing to pull it off by
the proposed deadline.
I have talked to MIT and Harvard grads who still think that if a
rocket whizzes by you in space it makes a whooshing sound much
like a jet craft does in the atmosphere. Someone forgot to tell
them there is no sound where there is no air. So what, you say?
Some of these grads are aware that even if we could travel at
warp 9 (Star Trek's imaginary multiplication of the speed of
light) that it would take about one hundred thousand years to
make the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy and upon return, the earth
would be about 1.2 million years older than it is today. But why
harp on the small stuff.
Only once since I began a twenty year fascination with
Einstein's time/light theory have I heard from anyone connected
to NASA who dared to address this fact to a sublimely ignorant
public. He was hushed up in the slow lane with indifference and
a public that couldn't tell you how the world can make it
through the next decade without imploding. With a list of almost
infinite problems how can we think of getting people out that
far, much less plan for the return of our astronauts after 4000
generations of time.
I'm not anti-science, in fact I think our world has only
improved because of it. But science should be no less immune
from a serious reality check than was the church in the dark
ages. I believe in the bible , and I'm sure it gives us only a
very short time to the second coming of Christ. But even at that
I would never put the bible against science. I am satisfied that
science is the book of how, and the bible is the book of why.
Being a bible believing Christian I also have another view about
space travel. It is hard to believe that every Christian may not
agree with me. Until the cost of getting to the moon is more
affordable if ever, I think the money could be spent more
effectively right here on earth and we could be satisfied with
singing the official state song of Vermont which is Moonlight in
Vermont.
Almost every starving child in the world could be fed and
clothed for a decade for the cost of sending up only one moon
shot. My bible, my conscience, my common sense and every bone in
my body says that would be a far better way to spend the fifteen
billion bucks.
I know there are those who will think this is a preposterous
proposal and perhaps it is. So I will offer yet one more
proposal that I think is on the same level as sticking America
with a fifteen billion dollar bill just to bring back a few moon
rocks. We could look for that cow, you know, the one who jumped
over the moon. We could train his aim for a while so he could
hit the darned moon next time. He could jump back with the rocks
and dust for our scientists to look over and we'd save a bundle
of taxpayers cash.
"Blue moon I saw you standing alone, without a dream in your
heart" Watch out, we're back!