Why is Space now Inspiring the Future

Well, my forum name Cro-Magnon Gramps, marks me out as someone who has been around a long, long time, and I am not ashamed to say I turn 65 this coming January; to me it is astronishing that I made it past 30; but I digress

  Back in 1958, when I was 10, watching B/W tv, and forced to listen to the news, as at 6 pm whatever else was happening, Dad got the TV and switched it over; politics and history were a steady diet in our house; and the daily news, and the news paper boys delivery was a part of it; it seemed that from that early age, advances were being made monthly; something new was happening and we were on top of the world, except for one fly in the ointment: THE COLD WAR

  We didn't get the in school lessons on surviving a nuclear attack, but we knew, oh, how we knew; at 15 when I finally got out of grade 8, we asked, "What are you going to be, IF you grow up?"
but the Space Race and the advances in science and technology that were flooding the news back then, were more than a cup of Kool-aid, they sustained us, gave us a bit of hope that things could be better; then the Viet-nam war was transferred to USA shoulders from France; and life became bleak again; I was old enough to make the comparison with the Spanish Civil War of the 30s;

  Dec 1968, that Christmas, we had a Colour TV and we could see with the Apollo 8 astronauts, the Earth as they came around the Lunar Rim, and they read the words of Genesis; I wasn't and still am not terribly religious, but as a human being, it struck a deep emotional chord; this is what HUMANS OF GOOD WILL COULD DO! War was not the only answer;

June 1969, I cheered with my siblings and parents, with the launch of Apollo 11 and the First Steps on another rock circling our Sun; in the intervening years, I had learned how small our little world was in comparison to the Milky Way Galaxy, but I still had no idea how small our Galaxy was in comparison to the vastness of space and time; it only served to accentuate the pointlessness of war and violence against others;

  The end of Apollo was an end of Innocence; the intervening years, while science seemed to take a back burner to wars, politics and economic upheavals in the news, people became less and less informed about the future; the dreams of 1999, and a brave new world, forged in the 60s were gone; while some things changed, for the 70s to the mid 90s it was a wasteland of broken dreams;

  Then along came affordable computers, powerful enough not to be considered toys; and then the Internet; and hope began to bloom again; the Space Shuttle was a dream come true; albeit a flawed dream; however taken all together, we could dream again; I had had computers since 1986, but it was in September 1998, that I bought my first real computer, and got e-mail; and got my first really decent job, via an e-mail sent to a magazine website, working on it's mailing list, using a "high end" computer;


The WOW factor in life had been restored; I remember the day, it was St Patrick's Day 1999, when the IT department sent out an e-mail with links to sites in Ireland and said, go at it and "surf" the net; and for the first time, in the space of half an hour, I flew around the world from Ireland to Australia, South Africa and I can't remember where else; it was mind boggling;

  Along the way, the realization of all the information that was out there; learning was free, the public library was no longer on the other side of town, but right there in my living room; yes it has grown, but that first realization, and opening of my senses, was like a blind man seeing; I began following my inclinations to where ever they would take me; and ultimately they led me to NASA, and NSF; it has been a long journey from a 10 year old kid to a 64 year old man, but I feel privileged to be here, to share in a dream that took root, almost died, but is still there: War is not the only answer, and The World can pull together to be a better place for all;

  SpaceX, Direct, Constellation, and all the other things that are happening in Science/Exploration are hidden away; where in the 60s they were trumpeted on front pages, and the 6 and 11 pm news programs; given full time coverage on Network Television; now they are hidden away; the excuse: People are not interested; the truth be told, people are not interested, because they don't know any better; the old lie, "we got to get our act together down here, before going out there" "we have better uses to spend all that money on" just don't wash anymore; they were the same lies that were used in 69-73, to kill the Apollo program; and where has the past 50 years got us; have those nay-sayers made good use of the intervening years to answer those statements; no, there is more poverty, there are still wars; our infrastructure and economies are still on the edge of collapse; what has been changed or accomplished by canceling the Apollo program: nothing, not a sodden thing;

  The space agencies are still struggling along, with fewer and fewer resources; but now they have partners that are not part of the MIC, and who are willing to dream the big dreams again; who have taken up that quest of the Star Trek generation, to boldly go where no man has gone before; and that is where they inspire and drive us to dream again; Nu-Space companies who are willing to be different, and not say, "Well, if I don't get my Government Contract, I'm not going to build that Space Craft to Mars!!!"; and while they talk big, and take their time, they will inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors to build "the new cathedrals" for mankind, as memorials to themselves and to the dreamers of the past and future Earth;