"One Small Step" - on the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing, and why we need to go back

Given my fascination with history it seems incredible that in 1994 I lived through the 25th anniversary of the Moon landing without paying the slightest bit of attention. I had a good reason though, as the Slapinions family was a bit preoccupied: that day featured the birth of my oldest nephew/Godson.

Happy Birthday Jonah!

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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. To me the events of July 20, 1969 stand as an incredible accomplishment, and a lasting testament to what can be done when science and human desire merge to achieve the impossible.

I was born five years after Apollo 11. For me, walking on the moon was a subject found in history books, not science fiction. Unfortunately, it has remained soley a thing for the history books. In my lifetime - which again, began so shortly after that great day - a human being has never walked on the moon, nor even approached it in orbit.

I'm still left shaking my head as to where we went off track. (The space shuttle, remember, was and is more a PR tool than an advancement, as it can only stay in low Earth orbit.) How did we strain so hard, rise above so many obstacles, triumph so spectacularly - only to sulk off into the shadows and lie content with what amounts to retirement?

What went wrong?

Well, for starters we 'won'. We beat the Soviets to the Moon, we accomplished JFK's ambitious goal, we scored the propaganda coup. Few things fertilize apathy more than success, and I'd say this was a prime example.

There is also the fact that this was an American endevour, fueled by national pride and creating more in turn. Yet even as Apollo 11 was en route to fufill JFK's quest, his youngest brother would drive off a bridge and a young woman would drown, ending the Kennedy's quest for the crown and our confidence in their perfection. While Armstrong made his historic walk a newscaster named Cronkite would describe the scene. A year earlier Cronkite had stepped outside the bounds of journalistic neutrality to render a verdict on a war. Inspired by this suprising breach a new generation of journalists would publish the Pentagon Papers and, later, take down a sitting President.

I myself have never felt it, by I'd assume in the wake of those events it was a bit harder to root for the home team.

I can understand those factors. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I understand. What I have never been able to grasp, what I hope NEVER to understand, is the foolish notion that space exploration is a waste of resources best spent here.

Whether we venture into space or not, some things are writ in stone. There will always be some degree of poverty. There will always be sickness. There will always be a natural disaster, or a war, an epidemic or a cause celebre to advance.

That was the case when our species first left Africa to migrate across the globe. It was the case when Europeans first ventured across the Ocean. It was true when America expanded westward, when the Wright brothers abandoned their bike shop to soar in the air, and it will be true a thousand years from now when we first set foot on a world revolving around a distant star.

To grind progress to a halt, to silence the inate curiousity that has been the hallmark of our species is madness. It's cowardice and an inferiority complex masquerading as idealism and compassion. Frankly, it doesn't even make sense. The amount of money spent by NASA is a drop in the bucket to any number of foolish and short-sighted programs we sponsor every year - even before the days of the 'stimulus'.

And for the record: in the nearly forty years since we stopped visiting the Moon, have we cured any major illness of note? Have we stopped poverty, or hunger? Have we ended wars, settled our cultural differences, or even united behind a single, viable economic theory?

Spend money on NASA, or spend it on something else: either way I guarantee you the answer to the above questions will be the same in a half century.

We need to return our focus to the future, and that lies outside this globe. We need to return to the moon - and beyond.