Personally, I have grown up very interested in the space program. I remember watching my first space shuttle launch in 1998 in the library of Donnelly Elementary School in Lebanon, Mo. I was only in first grade.
It's sad to see it go. And it's even worse that the future is uncertain. Little in the way of funding is bringing bad news to the iconic NASA space program. It's just an opinion, but the U.S. government, more notably the Obama Administration, kind of failed the program.
President Bush announced the ending of the fleet in 2004. However, he said that there would be a replacement, and a more advanced way to rocket Americans into space. This project was called the Constellation Program. The program would have built a new space vehicle and made it possible for humans to make it to the moon and Mars sometime in the future. Nonetheless, development from NASA will manage to continue on - just not quite the same way.
In 2008, Americans elected President Obama to lead the country. He elected to lead Americans out of the space race, or at least slow us way down, by cutting NASA's budget and ultimately bringing a negative change to the famed American space program, and prematurely ending the Constellation Program.
I guess pushing for a social take over of health care was way more important, right? Oh, hey, how about saving all the jobs and keeping Americans employed?
Looks like to shoot for the stars, the U.S. will now have look to Russia to make it happen. Apparently, according to a report from a Houston ABC affiliate, the Russians are even a little surprised by our move.
However, there is an upside. Even though NASA has to end manned space flight for some time into the future, there are future plans for unmanned space flights to study the heavens. So we aren't out of it yet. Just a set back.
What I'm getting at here, is that we cannot let this program die. Sure, we can look to the future. Manned space flights from the United Sates will return someday ... at least we can hope, right? That is as optimistic as this pessimist is going to be.
After all, it is in times of hardships and turmoil when Americans look to little pick-me-ups like seeing a shuttle blast off into the sky. It is what truly gives people the hope for the future. Margaret Mead put it well when she said: "
We are at a point in history where a proper attention to space, and especially near space, maybe absolutely crucial to bringing the world together."
So tomorrow morning, at 10:26 a.m. central time, grab a bowl of Cheerios, sit down, and watch an important moment in American history, when we will place the period at the end of the sentence.
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