The news about James Doohan diverted my attention earlier, but I couldn’t let today pass without acknowledging something very important: this is the 36th anniversary of the day human beings first set foot on another world, namely Earth’s own Moon.

My three loyal readers may recall that I wrote a fairly curmudgeonly entry about this subject last year. I still feel the way I did back then: annoyed that this significant historical event gets so little attention, disgusted that so few people seem to care about the lunar missions or space exploration in general, saddened that the great beginning we made so long ago has slowly but surely been pissed away. Although robotic space probes like Deep Impact are doing astounding things and generating lots of interesting new data, human beings have turned away from the ocean of space after doing nothing more than dipping a toe. Everything we’ve done up there since July 20, 1969 has been a gradual slump into our current state of vaguely disappointed apathy. Thirty-six years ago, brave men hurled themselves a quarter of a million miles from our homeworld in the name of national pride, and we all rode along with them in spirit. Today, the space shuttle remains grounded because of well-intentioned faintheartedness, the International Space Station is a boondoggle in search of a purpose, and President Bush’s promise that we’re going back to the Moon and then on to Mars has failed to generate any popular attention at all.

The bitter fact is, our cultural sights have fallen away from the skies. People these days, Americans anyhow, seem to have little interest in doing great things simply for the sake of doing them. Oh, everyone gets excited enough about the photos sent back by our mechanical proxies, but no one seems to want to go in person, to see the Martian sunrise with their own eyes instead of digitally and remotely. They question the cost, the safety, and the point of sending people when the robots do such a good job. I submit that while these are all important considerations and it is indisputable that the robots do more than we mere mortals currently can, it is also important to send human beings into space. Because that’s what human beings ought to do.

Our species has always been defined, as much as anything, by our curiosity, our need to see what’s on the other side of the horizon with our own eyes. Once upon a time, Americans believed in the concept of manifest destiny, the notion that it was our inevitable purpose to conquer the frontier of our nation. That idea has fallen out of favor in recent times for a number of reasons, not least of which is the closing of the frontier in the early part of the 20th Century.

Now, in the early part of the 21st Century, there are only two frontiers left: the deep oceans and outer space. Both are difficult to reach and even more difficult to live in. But I like to think that we can find a way — that we will find a way — to open both of those frontiers and put them to good use, because it’s what we’re supposed to do. I’d like to think that humanity’s true manifest destiny is to leave our cradle someday and move out into the stars. What can I say? I’m an old Trekkie at heart. I really would like to call down to Scotty in the engine room and ask for warp speed. But it won’t happen in my lifetime.

It may not happen at all if people don’t get excited about exploration again. Not space exploration per se, but exploration in general, the idea that there are more things to learn and discover than how to fit an extra gig of music into an ever-smaller package. I’d like to see people come to understand again that it is human nature to feel curious and that curiosity leads to pivotal and noble achievements. I think a good way to begin rediscovering the spirit that brought humans to the New World would be to designate this day a national holiday. On July 20 of every year, we ought to commemorate all the great journeys that forged human history, and all the brave people who undertook them. Let this day be dedicated to the first nomads who wandered out of Africa and across the land-bridge into North America, to the Chinese and the Vikings and the ancient tribesmen who explored the seas without written record, to the Greeks and Romans and, yes, the Muslims who charted the limits of the Old World, to the Europeans who dared cross the Atlantic in search of wealth and gained knowledge and a continent instead, to men like Jacques Piccard and Robert Ballard who plunge into the depths and to men like Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong who soar into the heavens. We can call it… Exploration Day.

I’ve just been outside and the Moon is full and huge. It looks like a yellow volleyball floating up over the jagged Wasatch Range that embraces the eastern side of my home valley. It’s calling to us, waiting for us to someday return. I can’t think of a more beautiful or appropriate sight to see on this, the very first Exploration Day…