My Final Frontier

I can't tell you how excited I am that some billionaire is busy building a privately-funder space station. This in conjuntion with the two spaceships posed to battle it out for the XPrize, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's SpaceShip One and the volunteer driven Da Vinci Project mean that not only are we approaching spaceships open to the public, but that the public will have somewhere to go once we get into space.

I hate that I was born in a period of space stagnation. It is patently unfair that man has not walked on the moon in my lifetime (the last moon landing was five months before I was born). It seems such a wasted thirty years. Had we followed through, we would have a moon base by now. Space stations. Possibly even tread on Mars. I would have thought that the potential for zero-gravity manufacturing would have pushed industry into orbit. But for reasons I do not comprehend, we wussed out, satisfied to beat the Russians and call it a day.

But now it looks as though the boys and girls of the fifties who watched in awe as man first blasted into space have grown up, and some of them have become billionaires. By working towards space, they are able to rekindle that child-like wonder at the glory of just doing something that one hundred years ago would have been considered ludicrous.

My love of these private ventures reveals my non-socialist streak. We need Socialized Medicine, because Americans should not die because they are poor. Social Security should be preserved and expanded, because anyone who works hard their whole life deserves to live their last years free of financial worry. But I see these things as rights. Health Care and Social Security are part of a social contract we have as Americans and therefore the government should ensure that all Americans have access to them.

But exploration is not a right. it is a privilege. And as such, it is best accomplished by people driven mad with the desire to do more, go farther, take the next step. Exploration happens because crazy people put their dreams into motion and a government entity cannot simulate that. Nor can it convince the majority that these dreams are important. The dreamer must first achieve his goal before the dream can catch on. The dreamer must also be willing to lose everything. Money, prestige, even his life for the sake of the dream, and a government can't make the same sacrifice.

I believe the exploration of space is vital. I believe mankind is at its best when it is stretching the borders of what is possible. I believe the momentary awe of witnessing someone do something that has never been done before is the closest proof we have that we as a people can do anything we set out to do. That I can do anything I set out to do.

I have made a personal vow that I will get into space somehow. I am willing to wait a long time. But not forever. If I get to be about 80, and there is no way I am getting into space, I will just build something in the backyard and hope for the best. I am thinking a 50 mile long catapult in the Himalayas, but I have some time to iron out the details.