An interesting Aeon article popped into my news feed this past week: Is a mission to Mars morally defensible given today's real needs? Spoiler alert, the article ends up with a “no”.
My initial reaction was pretty much the same. Why spend money on space exploration to another planet, when aren’t even providing safe drinking water to Flint, MI? The focus and expense just seems wasted to send some Matt Damon wannabe to plant potatoes.
A few days, alternate facts, and angry social media frenzies later, a thought occurred to me - When’s the last time our nation actually came together behind something bigger than ourselves?
When is the last time we, collectively, were proud of ourselves as a nation?
All throughout American history, we’ve had some great achievements. Achievements born out of decades worth of work, dedication, blood and sacrifice. The American Revolution, Expansion to the West, Winning World Wars, and sending men to walk on the moon are just a few. I love seeing old reels of Times Square post WWII. That looked like one hell of a party. (Keep in mind, I'm not trying to gloss over the atrocities that occurred. Bad things happened, and we need to learn from our mistakes.)
If I start thinking about the past few decades, I’m not sure I can find much that has the same awing effect as the lunar landing. <Thinks hard again> Nope, still nothing.
The 2016 Summer Olympics? That was nice, until our swimming team ended up vandalizing property, lied about it and ran. Embarrassing.
The more the thought of a manned (or ‘person’ed) mission to Mars rolled around in my brain, the more I liked the idea. It was something to be excited about. Something that people only dreamed about or read in Sci-Fi novels.
With all the turmoil, division, and nastiness that’s overwhelming us, I can see how space exploration could be seen as either a selfish pursuit or a devious distraction for what’s going on behind the curtain.
But, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that we need something. We need something so completely outside of our current concerns. We need something to dream about. We need a common purpose born out of hope and not fear. We need something to lift our spirits as well as our eyes away from the muck of the day to day and actually see that there’s still sunlight overhead.
How awesome would it be to put away our differences, put on our thinking caps and engineer something this world has never seen before?
How awe-inspiring would it be to be glued to the internet live(ish) feed watching the first person set foot on another planet.
How amazing would it be to stand together, regardless of our differences, grin ear to ear and say “We did that. We did that together”.
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