Actor-writer-blogger-geek-extraordinaire Wil Wheaton has a brief but evocative post up about his memories of the Challenger disaster and watching the launch of Atlantis the other day. Here’s the bit that resonated the most with me:
When mission control gave the order to go with throttle up, I held my breath like I have every single time since the shuttle program was reinstated in 1988, and when the shuttle separated from the boosters and glided into orbit, I got something in my eye. Just take a moment, if you don’t mind, and think about what it means that we can leave our planet, even if we’ve “only” gotten as far as the dark side of the moon. Think about what it means that something as incredible as putting humans into space and bringing them back safely to Earth today earns less media attention and public excitement than the typical celebrity breakup.
It is amazing that we can do this, and even though I’ve come to believe the shuttle program isn’t the best way to spend NASA’s tiny budget (which is a pitiful fraction of what it should be), I hope that there was a child watching the launch today who will feel inspired to reach out to the stars and see what’s out there.
We humans are a flawed species, to put it mildly, and I think we could do a much better job taking care of our planet and each other … but when I see what we’re capable of doing, it gives me hope that the future I pretended to live in twenty years ago will actually arrive some day.
(For anyone who doesn’t catch the reference in the final sentence — and I know at least one of my Loyal Readers probably does not — Wil played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation.)
I didn’t understand that reference! Thank you for explaining. 🙂
My pleasure, Karen, although for the record, you were not the Loyal Reader I had in mind. 🙂
Awww…I’m so vain, I thought this blog post was about me.
What? Sorry, I was studying the clouds in my coffee… 😉
A question to ponder: what percentage of the people who look to the stars to “see what’s out there” are inspired by NASA, and what percentage are inspired by the various incarnations of Star Trek and other TV/movies set in space?
I bet it’s a lot more of the latter than we care to admit sometimes…
I imagine there’s quite a lot of overlap, actually. It seems like every recent documentary on NASA (or other) efforts in space includes at least one person who says they were inspired by Trek. I personally don’t see that as a problem; many of my interests were originally inspired by some movie or TV show I once saw.
It’s only a problem because we’re not making many new space shows these days. And the ones we do make have become so commonplace that space isn’t “the final frontier” anymore – it’s just another setting for a sci-fi story.
We better find some honest-to-goodness Martians soon or no one in the next generation will be inspired like you or Wil Wheaton…
I see what you mean, and I agree. The sad thing is that I can’t see that kids these days are much inspired by anything except the thought of being on TV, but that may simply my advancing curmudgeonhood talking.