177 Space Exploration

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The U.S. put a man on the moon from nothing in 1961 to "before the end of the decade" in 1969, less than 10 years, but it's been estimated it would take 10-15 years to put a man on the moon today because of safety, or whatever, I'm not quite sure? You'd think all the specialization & fixation on perfection would payoff somehow in space but we've become a society of automatons, our imagination captured by videogames & unemployment, everyone thinking someone else is doing better than they are. In fact, space has been co-opted by The Rich & private interests who want to make it into a tourist attraction.</p> <p>Imagination has value, mostly entertainment but it is also an important part of problem solving. Obviously age-appropriate imagination must be fostered & encouraged in children that naturally leads them into a career path they would find enjoyable. There's a reason police, fireman & astronauts have traditionally been America's go-to childhood heroes, way more positive role-models than athletes or entertainers, but the “social networking” generation is getting behind the curve. Every 8th-grader has a YouTube channel with 100,000 subscribers, and the last guy in space retired when he came home. Russia, China, Japan & India all seem to be keeping their meager Space programs alive but America is having trouble convincing its leaders that exploration into space provides its own reasons, the most important of which is in the imagination of those same 8th-graders. Right now, the mainstream media steers every kid towards being famous; instead let's go to mars and create 100,000 new scientists & engineers.</p>