BLOGS

Listening to NPR this weekend, I heard Neil deGrasse Tyson elucidate on several topics: aging weather satellites impacting predictive weather models (and thereby climate change science); putting science into the latest issue of Superman (making a cameo in the comic); the possibility of going back to the moon. It was poignant and poetic with the death of Larry Hagman this Friday.

NASA I feel, held its collective breath on the election results: the consequence of which affect their budgets, thereby their goals and missions.

Going back to the moon: as Dr. Tyson pointed out on WAMC (not up on the site yet, or maybe just a replay), this would be at most a three-day trip, which could ignite a renewed interest in science. For the current generation, moon launches are as boring as shuttle launches and Civil Rights movements and bear equal time and attention (as none). It would finallly put to rest the conspiracy theorists that weren't alive, yet are absolutely sure that the launch was faked (because the video software on their laptops say so). The young have become the ultimate consumers of electronics and technology, only annoyed when it doesn't work, but not interested in mastering it as future career options.

 

If we don't, other countries will make a first and successful run at our closest neighbor, and we will be scrambling like a nostalgic recast of Sputnik in 1957:

Indian Space Research Organisation - Wikipedia

It could serve as a launching pad for further deep space exploration, such as asteroids; such as Mars. Richard Branson could get his space hotels, and another generation of astronauts would see an Earthrise, and be forever affected, no longer feeling part of a particular "tribe," but human: an earthling.