- submitted by s.levenstein on 07/22/2009
After One Small Step for Man, A Giant Sleep for Mankind
By Steve Levenstein
July 20 marked the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. Anyone old enough to recall that special day remembers it in the same manner as those from an earlier time recalled exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the assassination of JFK.
I'm sort of in the middle -- I vaguely remember watching Kennedy's funeral on television at my grandmother's house, but the moon landing? Crystal clear... I was at summer camp and in anticipation of the landing, the camp staff set up a big black & white TV in the mess hall. They perched the set on a tall, rickety, rolling contraption so everyone could see the broadcast and though the flickering pictures were washed out and grainy, our young imaginations filled in any blanks.
Leaving the mess hall afterward, we looked up and saw the moon... and we knew nothing would ever be the same again.
Except it WAS the same, mostly. Who would have guessed the steady course of manned space exploration would brake to a screeching halt after the last Apollo mission in 1972? Certainly not I, who practically grew up with the space program. First Mercury, then Gemini, then Apollo -- from none to done in a decade, right before my wondering eyes.
The years to come would bring Skylab, the Space Shuttle (glorified truck that it is) and spectacularly successful robot missions that have made countless editions of science encyclopedias obsolete. Admirable yes but in essence, workmanlike and ultimately uninspiring.
All things considered, the post-Apollo space program just doesn't resonate the way the incredible leap from the Earth to the Moon did back in the sixties. Instead, we're left with feelings of disappointment, even resentment. We were shown a bright, shiny, beautiful toy that was jerked away just before we could grasp it.
When Apollo flew its last mission, to be followed by... nothing... well, how could we accept that our space-faring future was being put on the back-burner? Had we, the tax-paying public, been taken for a very long, exceptionally expensive ride? Was the Space Race more about the race then the space, merely a political sideshow set in motion to upstage the Soviets? If that really was the case, then the entire magnificent endeavor is somehow cheapened, and that is a terrible, terrible shame.
Forty years after mankind's most shining moment, our leaders are at last looking towards the moon again. So are the leaders of other nations, driven by national pride and the lure of resources. A new space race may be upon us and maybe that's a good thing -- competition has spurred greatness before and it may well do so again.
Still, forty years... it only took ten to get from the first orbiting satellite to "one small step". Imagine where we'd be today if penny-pinching politicos didn't pull the plug back in '72 -- ostensibly to re-direct the money to solve earthly problems like poverty. It's said that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"... it's high time we let the other shoe drop.
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Steve Levenstein was born & raised at the then-northern edge of metro Toronto, Canada. Looking through the prism of the suburbs has not only given him a slightly skewed view of society, but has also helped frame the wider world as a series of variations on a theme. Closer to home, Toronto's multicultural mix acts as a rich, vibrant tonic -- an essential elixer that, by putting people out of their place, highlights the common humanity which lies within.
After a 15-year dip in the corporate pool, Steve abandoned the daily commute to focus on his first love, writing, and spending time with his family. Steve's wife of 18 years hails from Tokyo, Japan, and provides a unique window into the delights and diversions of modern Japanese culture while his 2 sons (the younger an established tech blogger in his own right) help keep the house from getting too quiet. Steve writes for a number of respected blogs including InventorSpot, WebUrbanist, Dark Roasted Blend and The Thinking Blog. ...read more rants
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