Going to the moon again is causing far more controversy today than it could have back in the sixties. Some Americans doubt we can afford it and others are not sure they have seen the "giant leap for mankind" that the first moon shot promised. It depends on who you ask but don't dare ask me. I didn't think the first moon landing had much significance for reasons that few people share with me. President Bush announced an ambitious plan to return to the moon by 2013-15 near the birthplace of modern flight, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The centenary of flight celebrations was held in Kill Devil Hills in December of 2003 where the President announced plans to allow NASA to offer up its best to the effort. With funding from congress to supplement their 15.5 billion dollar existing budget NASA will have to do a great deal of aggressive re-tooling and budget squeezing to pull it off by the proposed deadline. I have talked to MIT and Harvard grads who still think that if a rocket whizzes by you in space it makes a whooshing sound much like a jet craft does in the atmosphere. Someone forgot to tell them there is no sound where there is no air. So what, you say? Some of these grads are aware that even if we could travel at warp 9 (Star Trek's imaginary multiplication of the speed of light) that it would take about one hundred thousand years to make the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy and upon return, the earth would be about 1.2 million years older than it is today. But why harp on the small stuff. Only once since I began a twenty year fascination with Einstein's time/light theory have I heard from anyone connected to NASA who dared to address this fact to a sublimely ignorant public. He was hushed up in the slow lane with indifference and a public that couldn't tell you how the world can make it through the next decade without imploding. With a list of almost infinite problems how can we think of getting people out that far, much less plan for the return of our astronauts after 4000 generations of time. I'm not anti-science, in fact I think our world has only improved because of it. But science should be no less immune from a serious reality check than was the church in the dark ages. I believe in the bible , and I'm sure it gives us only a very short time to the second coming of Christ. But even at that I would never put the bible against science. I am satisfied that science is the book of how, and the bible is the book of why. Being a bible believing Christian I also have another view about space travel. It is hard to believe that every Christian may not agree with me. Until the cost of getting to the moon is more affordable if ever, I think the money could be spent more effectively right here on earth and we could be satisfied with singing the official state song of Vermont which is Moonlight in Vermont. Almost every starving child in the world could be fed and clothed for a decade for the cost of sending up only one moon shot. My bible, my conscience, my common sense and every bone in my body says that would be a far better way to spend the fifteen billion bucks. I know there are those who will think this is a preposterous proposal and perhaps it is. So I will offer yet one more proposal that I think is on the same level as sticking America with a fifteen billion dollar bill just to bring back a few moon rocks. We could look for that cow, you know, the one who jumped over the moon. We could train his aim for a while so he could hit the darned moon next time. He could jump back with the rocks and dust for our scientists to look over and we'd save a bundle of taxpayers cash. "Blue moon I saw you standing alone, without a dream in your heart" Watch out, we're back! |
