I wasn't sure how to feel about this whole concept for a while. Privitization of space flight. I am a huge fan of Carl Sagan. If I had ever had a head for math I would have been an astronomer. I love space and the whole idea of the cosmos. The mystery. What's out there. When other girls were reading Judy Blume, I was reading Isaac Asimov. Probably part of where I got my distrust of corporate involvement in space exploration. They aren't in it for the science, they are in it for the cash. Remember Burke in Alien? All they want to do is spread out and see what they can exploit for profit. When W. stated that he wanted to turn part of the space program over to private companies rather than leaving them under the auspices of NASA I was outraged! Of course he wants to do that! Let those corporate fat cats cash in on the military contracts that come out of the research. UGH!
But then I read about SpaceShipOne. And I started thinking again. Have you ever read "Space" by James Michner? I did in the 9th or 10th grade. (I did a report on it because I couldn't find any american science fiction writers I liked and the author had to be american for that project.) It's a great read, you should try it sometime. Or watch the intro to Enterprise sometime.
It didn't start with NASA, or any government for that matter. It started because men wanted to fly. And you can't blame them I suppose. Most of us have had those flying dreams, you feel so free and in control and powerful up there. You have broken the law of gravity. And some men were just stubborn enough to not take no for an answer. They knew it was possible, that someday men would fly.
But it took a LONG time. And a lot of dead dreamers before it happened. This poor fella plunged 190 feet in 5 seconds to his death trying to fly off the top of the Eiffel Tower. But the fact that he felt strongly enough that he could strap some homemade wings to his back, jump off a 190 foot structure KNOWING he would fly tells of how desperately men wanted to achieve that landmark in human evolution.
And they finally did it. And once they did that, it wasn't too long before they wanted to go even higher. And this was all done with no government funding. No committees to answer to, just private citizens with balsa wood and a lot of wide open space. Pioneering spirits and Visionaries is what we used to call them. Crackpots and kooks.
This type of personality later went on to become test pilots. Which is where we come into the space age. You have a space program. You're trying to beat the other guys to space. You want to find someone who is willing to strap a rocket full of highly flamable fuel to his ass and light it on fire hoping it will launch him 70 to 100 miles into the air and then out of the air and then back into the air again. Then hope the teeny little metal capsule he's crammed into doesn't burn to a cinder before it crashes into the ocean. Then hope it doesn't spring a leak and sink to the bottom before the helicopter can get out there to rescue him. You're either going to start puting up recruitment posters at Belleview or you get test pilots. They do stuipd shit with flying machines every day. And they say...Sure, but we've got to be able to fly it. Gregharin didn't have any controls in his capsule. He was just human cargo. These guys wanted to have control over where their grease spot ended up. Apollo 13 is another good read. These guys weren't doing this for any other reason than because it was there. They were the pioneering spirits and visionaries. The crackpots and kooks.
And I suppose that, in a way, these guys who are fighting for the "X Prize" have a bit of that in them. Yes, they are trying to turn space travel into a tour industry and make lots of money. But they are doing it. They are keeping the human element in it. There is only so much "Views from the Red Planet" folks can see before they start saying, "Yeah, but did you see what the Brothers W did in The Matrix?" It detaches people from the active process and makes them observers rather than explorers. And if we are ever going to actually go out and explore, we have to have people who want to do it enough to strap a rocket to their ass and light it on fire. And there can't be a government agency listing 5,000 subparagraphs of regluations stating that they can't, or they can but only on the third Tuedsday after the new moon when we get that money from this subcommittee that is holding it back because they want to have pork farm subsidies in Ohio. There is a wonderful short story by Robert Heinlein called "Requiem". It's about a man who wanted to go to the moon. His whole life all he wanted to do was go to the moon. So he worked and built company after company, bought and sold and made and lost fortunes all so he could go to the moon. But when he had finally created the technology to accomplish it, he discovered he had a heart condition and the regulations forbade him from going. So he fought, his family, the board of directors of his company and everyone else to use his private money to build a rocket to fly him to the moon. And he did. And he died there on the moon, looking back at earth. Happy.
I guess there are quite a few things to make you go hmmmm in this situation. Government regulation verses personal freedom, commerce verses science, and what the hell ever happend to the indominable human spirit. Personally, I think it went up about 62.5 miles in the air yesterday and came back down cheering.
It didn't start with NASA, or any government for that matter. It started because men wanted to fly. And you can't blame them I suppose. Most of us have had those flying dreams, you feel so free and in control and powerful up there. You have broken the law of gravity. And some men were just stubborn enough to not take no for an answer. They knew it was possible, that someday men would fly.
But it took a LONG time. And a lot of dead dreamers before it happened. This poor fella plunged 190 feet in 5 seconds to his death trying to fly off the top of the Eiffel Tower. But the fact that he felt strongly enough that he could strap some homemade wings to his back, jump off a 190 foot structure KNOWING he would fly tells of how desperately men wanted to achieve that landmark in human evolution.
And they finally did it. And once they did that, it wasn't too long before they wanted to go even higher. And this was all done with no government funding. No committees to answer to, just private citizens with balsa wood and a lot of wide open space. Pioneering spirits and Visionaries is what we used to call them. Crackpots and kooks.
This type of personality later went on to become test pilots. Which is where we come into the space age. You have a space program. You're trying to beat the other guys to space. You want to find someone who is willing to strap a rocket full of highly flamable fuel to his ass and light it on fire hoping it will launch him 70 to 100 miles into the air and then out of the air and then back into the air again. Then hope the teeny little metal capsule he's crammed into doesn't burn to a cinder before it crashes into the ocean. Then hope it doesn't spring a leak and sink to the bottom before the helicopter can get out there to rescue him. You're either going to start puting up recruitment posters at Belleview or you get test pilots. They do stuipd shit with flying machines every day. And they say...Sure, but we've got to be able to fly it. Gregharin didn't have any controls in his capsule. He was just human cargo. These guys wanted to have control over where their grease spot ended up. Apollo 13 is another good read. These guys weren't doing this for any other reason than because it was there. They were the pioneering spirits and visionaries. The crackpots and kooks.
at 3:00 PM :: ~#~
