I grew up on the space coast -- just an hour or so north of Cape Canaveral. When NASA launched a rocket, we knew it. We stood outside in the schoolyard in May of 1961 and watched the contrail when Freedom 7 took the first American into space.
We were glued to the television 8 years later, watching a clearly gobsmacked Walter Cronkite commenting on the first moonwalk.
Then it all became quite ordinary, as more and more missions were carried out. Until we all watched in horror in 1986 as Challenger, on the 56th manned mission, exploded in a heart stopping moment.
The question is often asked, especially in financial times like these, "Why spend all this money on space exploration when there are so many more pressing causes here on earth?"
I would offer that these efforts are no less important, in the grand scheme of things, than the money we spend on the arts. And I believe that the arts are absolutely essential.
The advances in technology and medicine that have been made as offshoots of the space program are many, and there are thousands of jobs at stake.
I'm so proud of my brother the rocket scientist (who took us touring around the Space Center over the holidays.)
I just wish I could once again see kids with the passion about science that drove so many of my generation into math, physics and engineering. To dream of life beyond the bounds of our earth.
Write your Congressman. Write the president. How can a man who supposedly is interested in creating jobs be taken seriously when he is seeking to shut down what amounts to an industry? How can the same administration that has sought to take over banks and auto companies and healthcare on the one hand, be driven to privatize the space program?
Stop this nonsense about pulling NASA funding for manned exploration.
