An Interplanetary Fireworks Show

Yesterday, the NASA Deep Impact probe slammed into the Tempel 1 comet. The mission is mankind's first contact with a comet--heavenly bodies that have orbits measured in millenia and that have been shrouded in myth and legend since the dawn of recorded history. The mission stretched across millions of miles of open space, and has been compared to hitting a bullet with a bullet. The impact created a spectacular Independence Day fireworks show for the ages.

Space exploration is one of the most exciting and potentially rewarding avenues of scientific advancement of our time. How ironic it is that at the threshold of some of mankind's most awe-inspiring endeavors, petulant myopia grips much of America. When President Bush put forth a bold new plan to return to the moon and plant an American flag in the red sand of Mars, cynics scoffed, ridiculing the president as a starry-eyed dreamer. Why should we spend billions to collect space rocks, they asked, when millions of Americans don't even have health insurance? Bush saw the writing on the wall (it was an election year, after all), and has not mentioned the plan since.

The entire episode showed all too well how far America has fallen from the intrepid spirit of the 1960s. When President Kennedy challenged Americans to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, we responded. When President Bush challenged Americans to put a man on Mars by 2035, we whined. If societal perfection were a prerequisite to exploration, then Columbus would have never sailed the ocean blue, Marco Polo never would have trekked across Asia, and Neil Armstrong certainly would have never made one giant leap for mankind. And yet with all of history as our guide to the promises and benefits of exploration, we turn inward, motivated only by what we can get as a handout. What a tragedy.