The New Space Race
This year witnessed the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle program, and perhaps with it, a certain kind of American dream. If the Moon landing coincided with a peak moment of American achievement in science and industry, then perhaps the following decades have seen America coast on that success. That coast may finally be slowing to a stop.
Barack Obama’s reelection is significant in more ways than one, but one is the rejection of the ethos that supported that coasting. The Republican campaigns were predicated on the notion that America was once one way and it should be that way again. That is a delusion. America has never been and will never be a simple ideal. It must change or it won’t last.
Today, we need careful optimism. Much in the world is wrong, but nothing is improved by cynicism and complacency. There are no assured successes or prescriptive solutions, but everyone can effect change. The space shuttle may be a bygone artifact, but the idea that fueled it is not. America’s heyday need not be over, but it needs to be rediscovered in addressing the dangers earlier success created.
