We were out shopping for vegetables when the space shuttle broke up over Texas. I was buying onions and spinach, and they were dropping down from orbit at Mach 18 in their big white spacecraft, watching the wings glow red and the sky grow lighter. A normal Saturday afternoon for me, until the TV coverage kicks in and, just like the Challenger in ’86, we watch contrails in the sky over and over and over…
A lot has been written about what happened yesterday. As usual, many people are questioning the need for manned space flight – on the ground of cost, safety, and scientific effectiveness. Some are saying that know is the time to ground the shuttles and mothball the space station. I think that they miss the point. Human exploration of space is important for the scientific knowledge it brings now, for the economic benefits it may soon begin to produce, and for our long-term destiny as a species. But it’s also important for us, now.
As a child, I had a telescope and like many, I dreamed of space flight. Then I grew-up and, of course, filled my life with the things that adults do: like going to work and reading newspapers and shopping for veg on a Saturday afternoon. I’ll never see a sunrise from orbit, or watch the sea and land turn beneath me. Somewhere deep inside me, the child that I was feels sadness at that; at never going up there. As an adult, though, I’m happy enough that someone is doing it. As long as I know that some part of the human species is out there, doing the job on all our behalves, I don’t mind taking care of the little things.
The exploration of space is trancendant, powerful, heroic, mythic. It’s not just about a few individuals: its characteristic of us all as humans. They do it for us. For you and me.
And thats why we have to carry on doing this. And not ever stop.
