The other night, while getting the Little Man dressed for bed, I noticed that he had a substantial selection of pajamas that referenced space travel.  Rocketships and robots.  Sometimes monkeys in rocketships, etc.   I aked him, "Do you want to be a space man when you grow up?"

He said: "Yes!"  Quite enthusiastically.

Mind you, when he thinks of "space man" he's not thinking about real Astronauts, he's a bit too young to truly grok that.  No, to him, it's all Buzz Lightyear and the like.  Which is kind of interesting, because it leaves me looking at his three year old self, and wondering, will we even have space travel when my son grows up?  I'm sure it must be a similar feeling in a way to how parents of the 50s might have thought about their children's future.  Except that I lack the seemingly eternal optimism of those parents of the 50s.   With recent changes to US poliitcal policy towards NASA and space, I wonder if there will be any kind of space travel by the time my son is old enough to realize that question.  Will we even bother getting off this rock?  I propose that this prosepect seems even more science fictional today than it might have appeared to people in the 50s. 

I think there's a little something depressing about that thought, as someonw who writes the occasional science fiction story.  I know there are those who simply feel that we no longer need to get off this rock.  And others who feel that interplanetary travel is pointless, cost prohibitive, and impractical on any level.  The science may (or may not) bear that thought out.  Certainly space exploration feels more practical from an approach much like the Mars Rovers.  Send out a device, get back data.  It's simple, and much more pracitcal.   Does it push us in the same way as Kennedy's challenge did?  Probably not.  I don't think it's as culturally sweeping in the way it was throughout the 60s to drive a nation to reach the vast limits of space.  To push human presence as far as we could. 

In an era where I hear the phrase on my radio "The last scheduled night flight of the space shuttle program," I can't help but feel a little sad that doors appear to be closing on great feats of human ingenuity, without the needs to satisfy some corporations bottom lines.  I see what appears to be a closing of a door.   I hope that whatever other door opens in its place will be one that gives the next generation inspiriation, hope and dreams.  I hope that the only future for space travel does not remain solely in the realm of science fiction.

What about you, did you ever dream of being an astronaut?

From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com


I suspect we will see that door open again when we reach a tech level where getting out of the gravity well is not so tremendously rough and expensive.

I never wanted to be an astronaut (the thought of being out in the cold vacuum of space was terrifying) but I did want to visit other planets. That is, if they were beautiful.

From: [identity profile] temporus.livejournal.com


It's funny, I recall finding a lot of neat science books in the basement as a kid, talking about space exploration. (Possibly some remnants of my older brothers' books, or quite likely stuff from my uncles both of whom went on to become engineers.) I remember the idea of going into space being fascinating, but I never remember wanting to specifically be an astronaut. I'm sure that I probably did say things like my son does when I was his age. And I wonder if the influence of the TV shows of my day made the idea of "space man" to be more akin to Han Solo than Buzz Aldrin.

Yeah, given the choice, I would have picked Han every time. But then, perhaps the kids of the 50s wanted to be more Buck Rodgers than Buzz Aldrin too.

From: [identity profile] jongibbs.livejournal.com


I did, but not my eldest brother. He's lactose intolerant and me and his other five siblings used to tease him mercilessly about what would happen if he ate ice cream before going on a spacewalk ;)

From: [identity profile] temporus.livejournal.com


Kids can be so cruel to their siblings.

In an odd bit of synchronicity, my son picked out yet more spaceman and rocket pajamas tonight. And so far, he still wants to go into space. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

From: [identity profile] paulwoodlin.livejournal.com


We could have if we wanted to, but we went for the arms race instead. Compare the budgets of the Pentagon to NASA sometime wonder what our world would be like if they were switched.

From: [identity profile] temporus.livejournal.com


The arms race and the space program were very much intertwined. It would be just as reasonable to say we would never have visited the moon if it weren't for the arms race.

I'm not sure what the world would be like if we could afford to spend orders of magnitude more on science for the sake of science instead of science in the sake of "defense".

On the other hand, without something to drive us forward, science tends to be a slow and fractured process.

From: [identity profile] paulwoodlin.livejournal.com


What you see as fractured I see as widely creative, persuing many avenues of investigation. As for slow, many things slow down science, some of them good, like peer review, verification of findings, and taking time to teach, and some of them bad, like excessive paperwork, lack of funding, and hustling around for grant money.

Sure, the military and NASA are interconnected (and the space race and the arms raced were ideologically connected), but if you take money from the navy and give it to the army, you get a bigger army and a smaller navy. If you take money from the military and give it to NASA, you get a smaller military and a bigger space program.
.

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