Farewell, the New Frontier

[Geee]

Human Events:

WASHINGTON -- As the space shuttle Discovery flew three times around Washington, a final salute before landing at Dulles airport for retirement in a museum, thousands on the ground gazed upward with marvel and pride. Yet what they were witnessing, for all its elegance, was a funeral march.

 

The shuttle was being carried -- its pallbearer, a 747 -- because it cannot fly, nor will it ever again. It was being sent for interment. Above ground, to be sure. But just as surely embalmed as Lenin in Red Square.

 

Is there a better symbol of willed American decline? The pity is not Discovery's retirement -- beautiful as it was, the shuttle proved too expensive and risky to operate -- but that it died without a successor. The planned follow-on -- the Constellation rocket-capsule program to take humans back into orbit and from there to the moon -- was suddenly canceled in 2010. And with that, control of manned spaceflight was gratuitously ceded to Russia and China.

 

Russia went for the cash, doubling its price for carrying an astronaut into orbit to $55.8 million. (Return included. Thank you, Boris.)

 

China goes for the glory. Having already mastered launch and rendezvous, the Chinese plan to land on the moon by 2025. They understand well the value of symbols. And nothing could better symbolize China overtaking America than its taking our place on the moon, walking over footprints first laid down, then casually abandoned, by us.

 

Who cares, you say? What is national greatness, scientific prestige or inspiring the young -- legacies of NASA -- when we are in economic distress? OK. But if we're talking jobs and growth, science and technology, R&D and innovation -- what President Obama insists are the keys to "an economy built to last" -- why on earth cancel an incomparably sophisticated, uniquely American technological enterprise?

 

We lament the decline of American manufacturing, yet we stop production of the most complex machine ever made by man -- and cancel the successor meant to return us to orbit. The result? Abolition of thousands of the most highly advanced aerospace jobs anywhere -- its workforce abruptly unemployed and drifting away from space flight, never to be reconstituted.

 

Well, you say, we can't afford all that in a time of massive deficits.

[RedlegDuke]

I was in 6th grade when Sputnik was launched. I grew up inspired by the "New Frontier".

 

Now, in the Autum of my life, I see what was "American Exceptionalism" destroyed by "Anti-American Liberals" and their "Non-American" pResident.

[Rokke]

I was in 6th grade when Sputnik was launched. I grew up inspired by the "New Frontier".

 

Now, in the Autum of my life, I see what was "American Exceptionalism" destroyed by "Anti-American Liberals" and their "Non-American" pResident.

 

You nailed it. It is the liberal message. Don't seek the next frontier. Tear down the people in front of you who are to keep them at your level. I wonder if America will ever have leadership who inspires? I think it is going to take a major tragedy in this country to reallign our focus. Obama may well have us on that course.

[RedlegDuke]

Obama is the end result of our complacency. My folks survived the Great Depression and the Second World War and they came out of it wanting their kids to not have to endure what they had endured. However, what they endured is what made them the Greatest Generation.

 

My generation had wonderful childhoods, but grew-up with a sense of entitlement. Too many of us went to college, not for the education, but for the draft deferment. Look at the number of college grads my age (65) who are professional woodworkers, potters, weavers, etc. The problem was that in college, they were indoctrinated by the socialists and communists and carried a tolerance at best and affection at worst full acceptance. With the Viet Nam War started the accepted promotion of "Ugly America" and it has led up to the election of an unknown quatity named Obama.

 

Everything this country achieved has now been called into question. No matter what anybody may say, this country leads the world in racial equality and technological achievement, so it is no wonder that the liberals must undermine both aspects.

[Ghost]

Good to see you RedlegDuke!!!! DollyCali here!