I wrote my first reply before I remembered Walter Lippman’s tribute to Amelia Earhart, written just a few days after she disappeared on her way to Johnston Island toward what would have been the end of her round-the-world flight. I print it here because Lippman had a far greater command of the language than I ever will.
"The best things of mankind are as useless as Amelia Earhart’s adventure. They are the things that are undertaken not for some definite, measurable result, but because someone, not counting the costs or calculating the consequences, is moved by curiosity, the love of excellence, a point of honor, the compulsion to invent or to make or to understand. In such persons mankind overcomes the inertia which would keep it earthbound forever in its habitual ways. They have in them the free and useless energy with which alone men surpass themselves.
Such energy cannot be planned and managed and made purposeful, or weighted by the standards of utility or judged by its social consequences. It is wild and it is free. But all the heroes, the saints, the seers, the explorers and the creators partake of it. They do not know what they discover. They do not know where their impulse is taking them. They can give no account in advance of where they are going or explain completely where they have been. They have been possessed for a time with an extraordinary passion which is unintelligible in ordinary terms.
No preconceived theory fits them. No material purpose actuates them. They do the useless, brave, noble, the divinely foolish and the very wisest things that are done by man. And what they prove to themselves and to others is that man is no mere creature of his habits, no mere automaton in his routine, no mere cog in the collective machine, but that in the dust of which he is made there is also fire, lighted now and then by great winds from the sky."
Yes, nothing says “hope” like a rocket launch, I totally agree.
I was at my granddaughters birthday party during the launch. I had it streaming on my phone and when the launch countdown began, all the adults huddled around my wee screen to watch. The kids were momentarily interested but quickly ran off to do 5 year old birthday stuff.
I must admit, my heart pounded as the rocket shone against the eggshell blue sky, and conversation turned to “where were you when the Challenger blew up…?” Yikes. And still… the thrill of exploration, the proof we can still do big things, the science that is happening on this trip… the composition of the crew… they all remind me of the feeling in my body of the good days we’ve had… so different from the constant dread I’ve felt since… well… let’s say the last five years as we lurch from one bad thing to the next.
I appreciate this reminder that if we work together, we can still do big things. Good things. And be hopeful.
Thanks for your piece. And for creating good memories with your son.
As a now 80 plus year old man who spent an inordinate time as a teenager buried in the short stories and novels of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, Brian Aldis, Issac Asimov, and their contemporaries; who watched Alan Shepherd blast off the pad on a 12 inch black and white TV in our school science room; and who spent a great deal of time out in the dark wondering about life beyond earth, I welcome this newest voyage.
I remember all the controversy about the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo program - that the money would be far better spent right here on earth, and especially after the Apollo 1 fire. Ending poverty, feeding the hungry, building and staffing good schools, and all the other very worthy things we needed to do never escaped my notice.
But that moment at the end of 1968, the most terrible American year of my life (so far anyway) when the crew of Apollo 8 sent back to earth that photo of the first Earthrise, there was never again in my mind any question that we needed to do “this and the other things: not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
JFK understood something essential about us, that among our most crucial needs was the effort to do the incredible, the risky, the amazing; that which was well over and above the normal human endeavors which were also necessary. A race that does not seek to exoand its horizons will not survive in any meaningful way.
I always tear up when I see a rocket launch. Has happened since I was young. The incredible display of human ingenuity and the hope it represents hits me right in the feels.
[Space exploration, particularly missions that send humans to the Moon] is an extraordinarily expensive use of human capital and time and resources to reach into nothingness and expanse. We all love pictures of stars and planets and nebulae, but we may never glean much of real material value from these investments in our own lifetimes. Or our great-grandchildren’s lifetimes.
END QUOTE
I understand what you sought to do with your essay.
However, I found the juxtaposition of this description, of “rational” objections to spending on space exploration, a little frustrating, to be honest.
We need make NO apologies for such investments, nor do we need to counter objections to them by citing the intangible benefits space exploration brings to humanity (by giving us all a little hope).
In fact, we have learned so much in my lifetime (born in 1960) from space-based science, as well as the engineering needed to undertake it. Fundamental shifts in our understanding of our own world, the solar system, the cosmos and spacetime itself have all come about because of collective investments in space exploration.
What’s more, space exploration has given millions of people around the world often fascinating, and definitely meaningful, careers. Which means millions and millions of jobs in the real economy.
More to the point, money spent on space exploration does NOT result in the deaths of millions of people, unlike the trillions the world collectively flings at the task of making and deploying weapons, including the creation of huge arsenals featuring weapons of mass destruction.
In other words, there can be NO rational objection to investing in space exploration, given the irrefutable benefits that this has generated, and the promise it offers for our collective future.
As likely one of the older readers who has vivid memories of the Apollo launches and moonwalks, nice to see how much has stayed the same (e.g., dedication of those involved, countdown routines and go/no go) and how much the technology has changed in terms of what we can see.
The following was written by William Safire for the then President, to be used in case the 1969 moon landing was a failure. Many a speechwriter friend has told me that it's the best speech never given, and I've always felt it represented the hope and promise and danger of space exploration perfectly.
"IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. "
Sent this to my space-loving father-in-law yesterday who was wondering why I wasn’t watching the launch with my kids:
It is exciting!
I am very conflicted — I love space stuff and I want to cheer on the Canadian astronaut, but I’m pretty incandescently angry at the United States to the point where it’s really hard for me to celebrate any of their accomplishments.
I am also in awe of their tech but it’s … okay not exactly yet, but almost at this point … like cheering on German technical accomplishments in 1937.
But yeah, the mission itself is cool. And they might put a nuclear reactor there for a permanent base in future Artemis missions.
PLUS ... If it wasn't for space exploration we wouldn't have Tang and microwaves. So there's that. Great piece by the way. I love it when you go philosophical.
Yes it is an expensive Enterprise but I always love Googling what a large number of technologies have spun out of the NASA, Defiant of the cost. It must be wonderful to be a Voyager making that Discovery.
I wrote my first reply before I remembered Walter Lippman’s tribute to Amelia Earhart, written just a few days after she disappeared on her way to Johnston Island toward what would have been the end of her round-the-world flight. I print it here because Lippman had a far greater command of the language than I ever will.
"The best things of mankind are as useless as Amelia Earhart’s adventure. They are the things that are undertaken not for some definite, measurable result, but because someone, not counting the costs or calculating the consequences, is moved by curiosity, the love of excellence, a point of honor, the compulsion to invent or to make or to understand. In such persons mankind overcomes the inertia which would keep it earthbound forever in its habitual ways. They have in them the free and useless energy with which alone men surpass themselves.
Such energy cannot be planned and managed and made purposeful, or weighted by the standards of utility or judged by its social consequences. It is wild and it is free. But all the heroes, the saints, the seers, the explorers and the creators partake of it. They do not know what they discover. They do not know where their impulse is taking them. They can give no account in advance of where they are going or explain completely where they have been. They have been possessed for a time with an extraordinary passion which is unintelligible in ordinary terms.
No preconceived theory fits them. No material purpose actuates them. They do the useless, brave, noble, the divinely foolish and the very wisest things that are done by man. And what they prove to themselves and to others is that man is no mere creature of his habits, no mere automaton in his routine, no mere cog in the collective machine, but that in the dust of which he is made there is also fire, lighted now and then by great winds from the sky."
Yes, nothing says “hope” like a rocket launch, I totally agree.
I was at my granddaughters birthday party during the launch. I had it streaming on my phone and when the launch countdown began, all the adults huddled around my wee screen to watch. The kids were momentarily interested but quickly ran off to do 5 year old birthday stuff.
I must admit, my heart pounded as the rocket shone against the eggshell blue sky, and conversation turned to “where were you when the Challenger blew up…?” Yikes. And still… the thrill of exploration, the proof we can still do big things, the science that is happening on this trip… the composition of the crew… they all remind me of the feeling in my body of the good days we’ve had… so different from the constant dread I’ve felt since… well… let’s say the last five years as we lurch from one bad thing to the next.
I appreciate this reminder that if we work together, we can still do big things. Good things. And be hopeful.
Thanks for your piece. And for creating good memories with your son.
As a now 80 plus year old man who spent an inordinate time as a teenager buried in the short stories and novels of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, Brian Aldis, Issac Asimov, and their contemporaries; who watched Alan Shepherd blast off the pad on a 12 inch black and white TV in our school science room; and who spent a great deal of time out in the dark wondering about life beyond earth, I welcome this newest voyage.
I remember all the controversy about the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo program - that the money would be far better spent right here on earth, and especially after the Apollo 1 fire. Ending poverty, feeding the hungry, building and staffing good schools, and all the other very worthy things we needed to do never escaped my notice.
But that moment at the end of 1968, the most terrible American year of my life (so far anyway) when the crew of Apollo 8 sent back to earth that photo of the first Earthrise, there was never again in my mind any question that we needed to do “this and the other things: not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
JFK understood something essential about us, that among our most crucial needs was the effort to do the incredible, the risky, the amazing; that which was well over and above the normal human endeavors which were also necessary. A race that does not seek to exoand its horizons will not survive in any meaningful way.
Very well said.
As an offspring of "the class of '42", I was right there with you James. Still with you today. Absolutely stunning, amazing, worthwhile and hopeful.
Sadly, Deborah Jane, I'm no longer permitted to date younger women. But my thanks for your "like".
I always tear up when I see a rocket launch. Has happened since I was young. The incredible display of human ingenuity and the hope it represents hits me right in the feels.
A very enjoyable read. Thanks Jen.
A lovely message to start my morning versus what has come lately. Thank you Jen
Thanks for the plug for optimism! We could use a little more of it.
One of the most profound articles I’ve ever read
QUOTE
[Space exploration, particularly missions that send humans to the Moon] is an extraordinarily expensive use of human capital and time and resources to reach into nothingness and expanse. We all love pictures of stars and planets and nebulae, but we may never glean much of real material value from these investments in our own lifetimes. Or our great-grandchildren’s lifetimes.
END QUOTE
I understand what you sought to do with your essay.
However, I found the juxtaposition of this description, of “rational” objections to spending on space exploration, a little frustrating, to be honest.
We need make NO apologies for such investments, nor do we need to counter objections to them by citing the intangible benefits space exploration brings to humanity (by giving us all a little hope).
In fact, we have learned so much in my lifetime (born in 1960) from space-based science, as well as the engineering needed to undertake it. Fundamental shifts in our understanding of our own world, the solar system, the cosmos and spacetime itself have all come about because of collective investments in space exploration.
What’s more, space exploration has given millions of people around the world often fascinating, and definitely meaningful, careers. Which means millions and millions of jobs in the real economy.
More to the point, money spent on space exploration does NOT result in the deaths of millions of people, unlike the trillions the world collectively flings at the task of making and deploying weapons, including the creation of huge arsenals featuring weapons of mass destruction.
In other words, there can be NO rational objection to investing in space exploration, given the irrefutable benefits that this has generated, and the promise it offers for our collective future.
To infinity and beyond! 😝
When we, as a society, choose to work together we can accomplish a lot. Maybe there is hope.
As likely one of the older readers who has vivid memories of the Apollo launches and moonwalks, nice to see how much has stayed the same (e.g., dedication of those involved, countdown routines and go/no go) and how much the technology has changed in terms of what we can see.
Sums up my feelings perfectly! Thanks.
The following was written by William Safire for the then President, to be used in case the 1969 moon landing was a failure. Many a speechwriter friend has told me that it's the best speech never given, and I've always felt it represented the hope and promise and danger of space exploration perfectly.
"IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. "
Sent this to my space-loving father-in-law yesterday who was wondering why I wasn’t watching the launch with my kids:
It is exciting!
I am very conflicted — I love space stuff and I want to cheer on the Canadian astronaut, but I’m pretty incandescently angry at the United States to the point where it’s really hard for me to celebrate any of their accomplishments.
I am also in awe of their tech but it’s … okay not exactly yet, but almost at this point … like cheering on German technical accomplishments in 1937.
But yeah, the mission itself is cool. And they might put a nuclear reactor there for a permanent base in future Artemis missions.
PLUS ... If it wasn't for space exploration we wouldn't have Tang and microwaves. So there's that. Great piece by the way. I love it when you go philosophical.
I agree but - ‘butlers’? Haha. The inclusion of that job title really made me smile.
Yes it is an expensive Enterprise but I always love Googling what a large number of technologies have spun out of the NASA, Defiant of the cost. It must be wonderful to be a Voyager making that Discovery.
I see what you're doing.
I knew you would, Matt. ;)