Today the space shuttle Discovery blasted off on its final mission into space. Two more space shuttle launches remain. The American manned space missions that started 50 years ago with Alan Shepard's 50 mile flight will end.
I remember like yesterday my most prized toy when I was six years old. It was a metal Gemini space capsule which spitted sparks out of its end and had a red blinking light. I also remember sending a letter to my local cartoon show host ( Who went by the name of Mr. Cartoon) to get a genuine Mercury Red-stone Rocket balloon. The balloon when filled with air and released would rise vertically off the floor like a rocket and would hover up and down.
Every American child dreamed of being an Astronaut and we were regularly told at school we could do anything as Americans because we were the greatest country in the world.
In science class we would watch the Disney movie Man In Space. We listened in awe to rocket scientist Werner von Braun telling us about the amazing future we would have traveling to distant planets. On Thursday nights I tasted the delight of Star Trek and the universe seemed smaller.
On a hot summer night tens of millions witnessed the image of Neil Armstrong jumping down to the moon on the screen of a black and white television. We rose the next morning to read with pride the three inch headline
MEN ON MOON!!!
In Jr. High the cracking scratchy radio account of Apollo Thirteens amazing safe return home was aired over the school PA system. In 1989 we all cried a tear or two when the first shuttle Challenger exploded into pieces.
But that was then when America was great. There now is no money for the future of American manned space flight. We in fact are no longer told that an we are an exceptional nation or people. Money is now best spent on regulations , bureaucrats and public employee unions.
In the future If we are lucky we might be able to catch a ride to space with the Russians , Chinese or Indians.
For as a nation we Americans are now going no where fast.
A Voice In the Wilderness
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