This should always be a dream for American children.
Posted on 02/10/2010 2:44:56 PM PST by annie laurie
"What are you looking at, Dad?"
"I'm watching the Chinese celebrate the completion of their moonlab, son. Look, there they are on the moon. See how happy they are?"
...
When the boy looked up again, he noticed a sad expression on his father's face. "What's wrong, Dad?" "Well, son, you know we Americans were actually the first to land on the moon. I've seen pictures ... "
The boy frowned. "We were first? How could that be? If we were first, how come we're not up there now?"
...
"From what I can tell," he said, as they ambled along the garbage-strewn street, "the leader of the government back then decided we weren't good enough to go back to the moon. The people he appointed covered it up by saying what they were doing was bold and new but nothing much happened after that. I read where some really smart people thought the leader would let them build nuclear and plasma rockets and jump far ahead in space."
Excited, his son grinned. "That sounds great! But what happened?"
"Well, son, for many years, everybody was apparently very happy. There were some wonderful drawings of amazing spaceships and a lot of scientists, even one of our first walkers on the moon, said this was a marvelous plan. But when it came time to actually build those ships, government officials said it was too dangerous to put nuclear reactors in space and that plasma rockets might blow up and hurt people. They also said there wasn't any good reason to do it, anyway. It was best to just research things and hope a magical way to get into space would be created. I saw a picture where one scientist had a chair attached to a flock of doves ..."
(Excerpt) Read more at homerhickam.com ...
Ping of possible interest.
Based off of what I read in that short story Homer is a great American!
He paints a surprisingly effective vision of what Obamunism would bring....
Indeed! :(
bump
Thanks annie laurie.
Amen. I was one of those who used to believe that it was pointless to spend money on going to the moon. I now see how wrong I was. You have to give people things to inspire them as a source of national pride and human endeavor, in absence cynicism will prevail.
Thanks for being open to the information that turned you around on human spaceflight.
It is so important.
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