Wednesday, December 26, 2001
|
Wednesday, December 26, 2001 |
|
With '01 in the books, look to the future By DAVE HAMRICK With just a few days left, it appears as though we may have made it through yet another year. And what a year it was! It's not often you have a year that has a date in it that will live in infamy. Just every 60 years or so. As a believer in space exploration and the need to move on to the next frontier, I guess I would have to say I'm pretty disappointed. There was no "space odyssey" in 2001, and there's not likely to be one for decades. Each day that passes, the probability increases that I'll have my name on a headstone by the time humans stand on another planet. I can't deny that much of my disappointment is personal and somewhat childish. I grew up dreaming of space travel, and had truly hoped that it would have become routine enough by now that I could save up my dollars maybe I'd have to sell my house and my children and buy space on a commercial flight. What was it the Russian guy paid ... tens of millions? Not quite in my ball park yet. But I'm also disappointed for the human race. We're like the Israelites, languishing in the wilderness, the victims of our own lack of vision, while the land of milk and honey lies waiting. No, going to space won't solve all of our problems, any more than colonizing the New World solved all of the problems of the Europeans who came here centuries ago. In fact, the settling of America brought them whole new sets of problems, didn't it? And as we move into space, we'll also encounter difficulties we haven't imagined. But it's in solving such difficulties that we advance. We've already seen quantum leaps in international cooperation as many nations contribute to the ongoing creation of a way station in space. Going and exploring and living outside the comfortable confines of our planet is going to require a lot more of that kind of cooperation. No one nation can do it alone, not even these United States. Sept. 11 was a stark reminder that we have not progressed so far as all that. Maybe we're on the verge of leaping to the stars, but down here on this old muddy wad of Big Bang debris we're still trying to write the most difficult equation of all ... the human equation. My hope for you and yours, and for me and mine, is that 2002 is a better year. Meanwhile, for all of the human race, I pray for peace, and vision for the future.
|
||