How we love this out of the world stuff. There are few things more exciting than thinking that we can escape our earthy bonds. That’s the ultimate adventure. Just to think of being up there somewhere among the stars, somewhere near heaven, makes us excited. Spirit and Opportunity are now on the surface of Mars, exploring its rocks, minerals, chemicals, looking for life. We saw the picture of the control room when the planners and schemers saw for the first time that all their work and problem solving for the last several years had come to a glorious achievement. A roar erupted; they were overjoyed. Their excitement was immense. So it should be. What an accomplishment! How in the world did they get those little bundles of computers and instruments to travel millions of miles at supersonic speeds, without harm, and land precisely on one spot on a planet three months away? Wow!
And now our president has said that he wants humans to make that same trip to Mars and come back safely. How can that be? Talk about a super scientific achievement! Wouldn’t that be a glorious accomplishment for our nation and our culture! Think of all the things we would learn by being able to make that trip! Talk about a great slide show! That would be truly exciting. If we could pull that off, we could think about going even farther with manned space flight. Considering that there are, all the time, scientific discoveries that make things possible which were not possible before, the sky is no longer the limit. It is the land of spirit and opportunity. We are already sending probes to the farthest reaches of our solar system. We have fly-bys of Neptune and Pluto. It may not be too long before we are sending more than instrument packages to our farthest planets. We may be sending humans to other planets in our solar system.
For those of you who think that this prediction is letting our imagination run too wild, just think of what has happened over the last 50 years. Sixty years ago there were no televisions, no cell phones, no satellites, no rocket ships, no Hubble telescope, no flight to the moon and back. Just let yourself wonder what marvelous things may be invented and possible within the next 50 years. It is not without the realm of possibility that these things which seemed only wild flights of fancy in science fiction stories 50 years ago will not only be possible but likely within the next 50 years. What an exciting time to be alive and be a part of these glorious explorations!
We devour the magazine Discover each month. It is chock full of tidbits and short accounts of all the latest reports from geology, anthropology, sea exploration, chemistry, nuclear physics, astronomy, computer advancements, and any other finding which looks like it may have a significant impact on our lives. There is great stuff in this magazine every month. It is the same kind of excitement as space exploration, an endless adventure of limitless new discoveries. It is a thrill to be a part of all these adventures and new discoveries. We can’t wait for the next marvelous space adventure to happen.
Notwithstanding our eagerness to see more space exploration and adventures, there is something very disturbing about wanting to finance a human journey to Mars at this time. It may be exciting, and it may be politically correct. It is certainly not morally correct, and certainly not financially responsible. We have a war going on in Afghanistan. We have a war going on in Iraq. We have our soldiers in far away lands, dying every day. We have rising fuel costs and rising costs of living. We have a monster national debt for which we will be paying the rest of our lives and our children will be paying for the rest of their lives. Maybe, Mr. President, it is time to start buying only what we can pay for. Maybe it is time to do less so that we can catch up with the monster debt we have already incurred. Maybe there is only so far we can stretch our resources before the rubber band breaks and we all collapse in a heap. How much longer can we go on selling off our resources to the rest of the world before the lenders demand payment? We suspect it may not be a whole lot longer.
It is also not compassionate. There is a huge epidemic in our world today. It is called AIDS. It causes millions of deaths, millions of orphans, and immense suffering. How in the world can it be moral to spend whatever resources we have to go to some other planet, when there are people on this planet who are dying in droves because there are no resources available to them? How in the world can it be moral to add to the pollution of this planet when our ozone layer is melting away, our water tables are being depleted, our streams poisoned, and our air polluted? We are all brothers and sisters on this planet. We have only this one planet home. Why are we not spending whatever extra resources we have to take care of our brothers and sisters, and our home? We should take care of our family and our house, before we go off looking for a house elsewhere, somewhere up in the sky.
Mr. President, we think you are insane. Is it because you are a Christian cowboy, to whom all of life is an adventure in righteousness? Is it because you feel you can overcome all obstacles with God on your side? Is it because you feel you don’t have to worry about anyone else other than those who vote for you? Or is it just sheer stupidity? We suspect it may be all of the above.
The God of Chance is not on your side, Mr. President. He will make us all pay dearly for polluting our planet home, and not showing love toward all our fellow humans.