Michael Swickard

I grew up in the golden age of space exploration. World War II had just ended a few years earlier and we as a country were looking to space for the next great challenge. There was little doubt that the American spirit would conquer space. It was a time of “can do” excitement.

One sunset in October 1957 I gazed up at a small bright point of light passing over my head while in space. My uncle said we should always remember this moment because it has changed our world for the better, even if it was the Soviets who launched that satellite.

While I never wanted to be an astronaut myself I was absorbed in the drama in the 1960s space program. Each launch was a big event. A television was brought into my school so we could watch John Glenn become the first American to orbit our planet.

There were missions to the moon where the camera showed live pictures as it came down full speed to the moon surface, suddenly going blank at the moment of impact. We were thrilled watching it in the early morning hours on our black-and-white television.

Christmas from the moon in 1968 with Frank Borman, James Lovell and Bill Anders was especially interesting since it was my first year in college and we talked quite a bit about the promise of space. Then, about 8:30 on a July Sunday night in 1969, we sat breathless before the television as the first human footprints were made on the surface of the moon.

Some months later we were again in front of our televisions praying that the astronauts of Apollo 13 could be saved.

Set to walk away from space

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As a nation we have not always been as attentive, but some of us are always awed by space launch and achievement. Heck, an airplane flies over and it has my attention. The Space Shuttle is scheduled to take off at 12:20 p.m. MDT today. It is one of the very last shuttle missions.

Sadly the political will in our country will soon ground the space shuttle and cancel any more space ventures other than those privately funded.

To think we are just one generation from John Kennedy’s magnificent challenge: “We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people… We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Fast forward 50 years and we are a nation set to walk away from space, because our political leadership lacks the will to continue. In that magnificent 50 years so much promise was realized while much more was not. We went to the moon and returned safely. But we lacked the political will to return since 1972. Going to Mars became a dream too far.

President Kennedy’s vision

Our nation was the leader of space exploration and was the primary but not only driving force in the International Space Station. We have had our triumphs and our failures. In both, we as a nation remained resolute. That is until now, when the political winds have shifted away from achievement and, it would seem, toward self-centeredness and political gain at the expense of everything else.

It makes me wonder if the political leadership now in our nation’s capital does reflect the character of the American people or of people in general. I think not. There is still the spirit of achievement alive in many Americans. Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman noted, “Exploration really is the essence of the human spirit, and to pause, to falter, to turn our back on the quest for knowledge, is to perish.”

I wish we had political leaders now with the vision of President John Kennedy.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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