A COLD, CLEAR DAWN
MOON DUST ON THE JACK PINESaturday, 9:00 AM. Temperature 5 degrees, up from –3 earlier. Wind W, calm. The sky is partly cloudy and the barometer predicts snow. The truck battery died, so there will be no working on the dog sled trail for me this morning.
Last night I watched in vain for the rise of an almost full moon, but it was obscured by clouds and fog. It’s probably just as well I didn’t see it, as it would almost certainly have depressed me even more.
I was first stunned, then mad as hell upon hearing that the President is junking our manned space program , while a similar amount of budget dollars are going towards creating some short “bullet train” routs. How prosaic! Trading a quicker trip to Disney’s Space Mountain for the real thing! And the fact that we may pay Russia $51M per American Astronaut to launch them into space makes us certifiably loony.
I remember the embarrassment of Sputnik and JFK's challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon within the decade. I remember well listening to a live radio report of John Glenn’s earth orbit while working high on a scaffold in Milwaukee, and all of us… laborers, masons, iron workers… all cheering his safe return to earth.
Joan, I and and our first child watched in awe the live pictures of Neil Armstrong emerging from the Eagle and announcing his “One small step for Man, one giant leap for Mankind,” and then planting Old Glory in the moon dust.
My heart still sinks when I think of the Challenger disaster, and the loss of its crew, so American in their diversity and bravery.
Our manned space program has spurred our science and technology as nothing before or since, has given us an unparalleled sense of discovery and optimism, and fueled the dreams of generations of our young people. Will we now say to our children and grandchildren, “If you were Chinese or Russian you could dream of being an Astronaut, but aren’t you lucky, you might grow up to be the engineer on a train to…DISNEY WORLD!”
Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of porridge; will loonies in Washington sell ours for the possibility of a quicker commute from NYC to DC? Are they smoking moon dust, or something else?
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