Telegraph this morning. He was talking about how our culture is one
where we are so afraid of taking risks, and yet we also have fears
that are quite irrational
http://www.boris-johnson.com/2009/07/20/the-new-vetting-and-barring-database/
His column was mainly on this new arcane plan to have a database of
adults who want to enter a school, specifically those who come to give
a talk or share about their books. Why, you ask? Well, they're afraid
children's book writers are perverts.
But I want to talk more about the tangent he used. About the moon
landing.
40 years ago, when the Soviets and the Americans were in the space
race and the cold war, there was a competition to see which form of
society - capitalist or communist - was the more powerful one. In
other words - who can go further?
That's 1969.
Moving on to July 2009, in a different century, where are we in space?
Well, let's give credit where credit's due. There were several more
lunar landings after Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins. But guess when
the last one was. 1972.
Now guess where the destintion of the furthest HUMAN spaceflight was.
The moon.
That's right, After humankind made that giant leap in 1969, humans
stagnated for 4 years. Then, humankind took a couple of steps back.
Why is it that while we have Moore's Law in computers, we do not have
the same in the distance we have flown into space?
Why is it that after 40 years, we have not figured out how to make
space flight accessible to people in general?
Where is Virgin Atlantic today?
Why have we not been able to explore Mars in person? Why have it
always been robots that go there?
Why can't Nasa bring Hubble back home? Why must they let it sink?
Don't you want to inspire the next generation of rocket scientists?
Perhaps the space race reflects how humans work - we only move forward
if somebody applies pressure. It's like teenagers - if nobody told us
to do something, we won't. And if we're told to do something, we still
don't do it, because we're just moaning about this and that. We don't
have the motivation to care about space anymore - money over
discovery, knowledge, and the desire to learn. It's all about the
economy and the cash today, isn't it? That's what people look at.
Look at China. In recent years, they've sent a few people into space.
I sense that China will overtake USA in the space race in 20 years'
time. Not because they want to promote communism. But because they
have the ambition to see people in space, regardless of the risk.
Nasa has softened, especially over the past few years, with the
Columbia accident in 2003. It's major accidents that cost human lives
that make Nasa hesitant about taking risks. Let's face it - they've
burnt out. They've posed themselves with a limit - health & safety
regulators and more red tape. They want to reduce the amount of risk
they're taking, so that they can reduce the number of accidents that
occur.
It's like a person who was in a road accident. After the crash, he
doesn't want to expose himself to more danger, so he stops driving.
It's these forms of 'rational' behaviours that has caused my
generation - the 1992 generation - to miss out completely on the
meaning of "humans on the moon". What is it like to be in space? What
is it like to be on the moon? Heck, what's Martian air like? We only
know the answers to these questions in theory, nothing more.
If only I was born in the US in 1948. Perhaps I would stand a chance
to risk death to see the big white rock that passes the night sky
wherever I am on Earth.
Well, this teenage hippy's knowledge of space is mainly thanks to
digital cameras and expensive datalogger that are out there, but also
those brave people who were willing to risk themselves so that they
can learn more about space.
God bless those astronauts - past, present, and future. May we see man
explore Mars in the near future. If we have the ability to make things
heavier than a car fly, surely we can deliver people safely to Mars
and beyond. This universe is so vast, yet we've only touched so little
of it.
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