A Dream Forever Stolen

Vanity | March 2 2009 | Scotsman

[Scotsman]

Once upon a time when I was very young, my father and I lay outside on the banks of Lake erie late one hot summer night. Not one manmade light could be seen as far as the eye could see.

But there were lights. Oh, were there lights! Untold millions of them!

I had never seen anything like it before in my young life. I saw the Milky Way like a glorious, twinkly rainbow cutting a huge swath across the entire sky, from horizon to horizon.

I saw the wonders of the universe that night. A night that no matter how hard I tried over the following decades to replicate, I could not.

That was the night I knew that somehow, some way, we were going to the stars. I was going, too. Not as an astronaut, or space explorer out of a science fiction novel, but simply as a visitor, a tourist.

I knew that because I believed it. I believed it because my father told me that is where mankind is going, to the stars.

The next summer, Sputnik was launched.

Struggling through high school, my dream was kept alive as we visited the moon. Surely, I thought, the stars can not be far away. After all, a man just walked on the moon!

Little did I know then, in the Sixties, that walking on the moon would be the high point of mankind's reach. It took almost fourty years for the realization that man would not reach the stars to sink in, but it now finally has.

The amount of money our elected leaders have spent so far on the War on Poverty alone could have funded trillions of dollars in extratarestrial research and development. Could ten trillion dollars and fourty years of dedicated research create the mythical Stargate?

We, or at least I, will never know. My time for dreaming is over.

I fought for this country once, while we were walking on the moon. Who would not fight, I thought, for a country that held out such a dream to it's youth - the same dream I had on that dark night, on that grassy bank of Lake Erie in that magical summer of my father's and my dream.

I am too old to dream like that now. Those sorts of dreams are for the young - who think they are immortal and dreams like that seem attainable in a lifetime.

But I am not too old to fight for my country and the dreams of others - again.

Only this time I will be fighting our own government, for it is that government that has stolen my dream and I am willing to fight so that someone else can have that same dream ...

... and there will be a man someday that sees a different sunrise on a planet as many lightyears away from us as the amount of dollars that government has wasted over those precious, lost decades.

I am ready to fight for a dream forever stolen from me ...

... so that dreams are not ever forever lost, again.

[Scotsman]

mysterio, you're right ...

... this too shall pass.

But what will be left?

I am intrigued by matched pairs of electrons, I think, that transmit information over distances instantly. Matter transmission is a ways off from what little I hear. Heard about a series of experiments using light waves/particles to transmit information across time also.

Baby steps.

[Marie2]

I agree, the war on poverty paradoxically creates and establishes poverty.

I think strengthening and defending the nuclear family is the best antidote to poverty there is.

[Scotsman]

H-Daddy ...

... imagine Space Prospectors mining the Asteroid Belt, Space Guard units corralling comets and retrograding their orbits to crash into Mars, adding precious water to the planet's atmosphere, terraforming it into a vibrant colony of mankind.

The moons of Saturn covered with ice, possibly with liquid water beneath, and life waiting for us to find it. Who knows what medical cures live within that life. There is a celestial jungle out there with wonders we can only feebly imagine.

[Scotsman]

Windflier, forty years is just a hiccup ...

... for Mankind.

For one Man, it can be an eternity.

Thank you. I'm grateful that it touched you. If I did it right, you will remember the visions it brought out in you at random times in the future, at key points when you are thinking back into the future that never was but could so handily yet be.

:)

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Truly! I do envision miners shooting a stream of heavy metals towards Earth for harvesting; Helium-3 on the Moon’s surface. But, ultimately, it will come from intrepid explorers willing to take the risk. It’s in our DNA. MAN, wouldn’t it be great?

[Windflier]

...forty years is just a hiccup ... for Mankind. For one Man, it can be an eternity.

This may not be real to you, but I'm going to say it anyway.

You will be there.

[Scotsman]

H-Daddy, what a glorious sight it would be ...

... to stand on an asteroid and see the cold, neon blue glow of distant Ion Drive cargo ships as they plow the solar system's shipping lanes, delivering the building blocks of civilization to inner orbits and returning with supplies and Space Farmers ...

... :)

[Scotsman]

Windflier,

I'm grateful, thank you.

[Lancey Howard]

Good post!
As an enthusiastic member of the Science Fiction Book Club (circa 1968 - 1971) and a devourer of every Robert Heinlein book, I share your sentiments more than you can know.

FRegards,
LH

[Nateman]

At the turn of 2001 I wrote something similar. 2001 and it had little in common with the movie. I use to worry if we'd manage to get people living off this planet before we slipped back to some new dark age. I still do.

The hope I believe lies in automation, machines that can not only make copies of themselves but which can be reprogrammed from afar to do other things. That would make living in space not only cheap but profitable.

Reaching for the stars is still only a wish but the solar system is tantalizingly close to becoming a fresh home. I dream of seeing a new America reborn out there in our solar system free of the collectivist swamp of earth bound Obamanations.

[Gator113]

That was very well written.

Your writing style compels the reader to continue, and begs one to step into their own memories, looking back through the years for like dreams, like moments, like feelings of excitement, innocence and peace. At least it did me.

Seems we have traveled down a few of the same roads. I am 60, and while I don’t like this ‘getting older’ part of life, going through it reminds me daily of how very fortunate I have been, to live in a time and experience.... that others may never see.

My body will not allow me to be the warrior I once was, but I have the strength of ten men within me and I would gladly fight, again, so that younger eyes may see and live their dreams.

I still dream though. It’s easy to find more dreams... by simply looking into the eyes of my grandchildren.

As for that wonderful sight of the stars, that precious moment with your dad so many long years ago, you will see it again. This time you will be looking from the other direction, that is all. It will be just as beautiful, just as inspiring, just as vast and he will again be by your side.

Good night.....

Gator

[Nowhere Man]

N-Man, in the last half of the last century, about the only entities that had the wherewithall to reach the Moon, and even on to Mars, was government.

True, I think it would have been very tough for a private entity back then to be able to "get it together" for such a feat. You would need the resources of the USA or USSR to tackle it.

Of course, back then, most people lived in social isolation - the only news was on the radio, and as it grew, broadcast TV, and of course, newspapers.

I remember back then, well the 1970's, most people got their news in the morning, sometimes at noon and the evening with the local news recap at bedtime. I remember watching the Moon landing on our 1959 black & white Philco. Come to think of it, there is an entire generation of adults that never, ever saw a man walk on the Moon live on TV.

Even telephone calls beyond a few tens of miles were considered long distance and were to be avoided except for truely important things like births and deaths and such like.

I know, because they cost a lot. I've always remembered "touch tone" phones, in fact, the Pittsburgh area was a test market for "touch tone" as early as 1959 or so. It started in Greensburg and Crafton, PA I think and went from there. I sometimes remember long distance calls when satellites became in use, there were times you can hear yourself in an echo.

Now - or rather at some indefineable point in the future, maybe private enterprise can do a better job. I would prefer that to government, after the last fourty years.

Agreed. I'd like to see some private venture to Mars that is beholden to no one, maybe we can clear up and get to the truth about things like the Face on Mars and so on.

Tagline dittos, too. :)

I like it. I'm in a role playing game group and the guy who runs the game I'm in came up with that one.

[Nowhere Man]

Nutz. Show me how the War on Poverty could even CREATE a new orange drink.

True. At least some of the "make work" projects made by Hoover and FDR did have some benefits like Hoover Dam and other infrastructure or even again getting back on topic, the space program. At least those created some wealth in a round about way.

[Nowhere Man]

At the turn of 2001 I wrote something similar. 2001 and it had little in common with the movie. I use to worry if we'd manage to get people living off this planet before we slipped back to some new dark age. I still do.

I do believe we are in such a race, we need to get out there before we manage to whimper out or blow ourselves up. We managed to forge ahead and then we retracted and stagnated, even in some cases, fell backwards. I fear we might be losing this race. I can see maybe a new civilization thousands of years from now landing on the Moon and wondering about our artifacts there, that is, if the chain of history is broken. Red China orbits a man in space, big deal, the Soviet Union and United States did that 40 years prior to that and with vacuum tube and discrete transistor technology.

[Joe 6-pack]

Well written....reminds me of the opening quote from Gods and Generals...

"A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead."

- George Eliot

[MayflowerMadam]

America go to Mars? NOT! With the dumbing-down of our schools, there isn’t enough brain power to pull off such a feat. A friend is a physicist in the aerospace industry, and he’s disgusted at the caliber of PhDs that are coming in to the workforce.

[Scotsman]

Your comments are all appreciated greatly.

Thank you.