do this badly, so please bear with me.
I've been watching the series 'from the Earth to the moon'. One thing struck me as I was watching.
The first Apollo rocket that was designed for the purpose of leaving the Earth and venturing to the moon caught fire on the launch pad, killing all three Astronauts. There was a huge outcry. Senator Walter Mondale tried to use this incident to bury NASA and the space program because he wanted to use the money for public programs.
There is an episode in this series that showed the preparations for the next launch, and all I can say is, they were intense. One more accident and the American space program was done. We would never go to the moon. The Russians would have no incentive to go to the moon. Perhaps man would have never reached the moon if that launch had not been successful. But who can deny the significance of the fact that a man set his foot down on another planet?
What I am getting at here is risk. Every 12 seconds, someone dies in an automobile accident. Maybe you didn't know the statistics were that high, but you certainly know that whenever you step into your car, you are taking a great personal risk that it will be the last time. And yet you still step in your car. There is no congressional investigation if you meet disaster, the automobile industry does not shut down because a few people died, it is a risk that you accept without even thinking about it.
Every day, countless soldiers die on battlefields all over the world. There are so many that the news barely covers these events, and usually doesn't. If you even think about it at all, you probably think that it's a tragedy, but those soldiers knew the risk when they signed up, it was their job, they accepted it. Life goes on.
So why is it so much more tragic when a school teacher dies in a space shuttle than when one dies on a highway, or a battlefield? the later deaths did not stop war, did not stop driving. It must be something else.
The space program, I believe, is so much beyond the comprehension of most people that they do not understand why people have to die to achieve these goals. Sacrificing for a dam, for a building, to stop a robbery, those are noble and heroic, and acceptible deaths, but not in the space program. After all, we got to the moon, what's the point?
Well, here's one point that JFK never gave us with his grand vision. Never before in the history of mankind have humans been able to leave our planet and travel to another. This is the stuff of aliens, the stuff of gods, the stuff of dreams, how can it be understood?
But, if we can leave this planet, learn how to colonize others, then the human race will survive long past this Earth, no matter what happens to it, we will not pass from the existence of this galaxy, our race will be immortal. I consider that a fundamental, and noble goal.
Humans can find resources that are not available to us on this planet, elements that we as yet do not even know exist, and use them for our betterment. That too, like penecillin and the electric motor, is a noble goal.
Noble goals that further the human race are NEVER without risk, NEVER achieved without ultimate sacrifice, because it is in that sacrifice that the risk is understood, the nobility realized, and the goal achieved.
This may sound heartless, but I believe we have not had enough tragic endings to space missions. In any great endeavor, whether it is a chicken farm, or a dam across a great river, or the highest skyscraper, or the spread of democracy, there is always death, that is the price we humans pay for our advancement. Just as with dams, chicken farms and automobiles, if enough people die in the venture, we will begin to be desensatized to individual deaths, and see a more significant goal beyond. After all, if enough people find it important enough to die for, then it must be a good thing, right?
The people who board these space vehicles know as much, if not more, the risk they take, and they take it willingly, with hope and smile. So if they are lost, do not morn them, that is not what they want. Do not praise them with statues, or parades, or ceremonies, because that elevates their sacrifice above the fireman who was killed trying to carry the child from the burning building. And do not fault the space program as a whole. It is made up of humans, and they have a better track record than any other human endeavor. No one has EVER died in space. Instead, honor their memories by supporting what they believed in. A better world because we are no longer bound to it.
