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Yesterday afternoon, I watched the shuttle Endeavor blasting off into space. It had been a while since I paid much attention to the space program. Like most Americans, in spite of the few tragic failures, we take for granted the flawless perfection of a NASA operation. After all, they are a bunch of rocket scientists. The whole thing was most impressive... four million pounds lifting off the earth and seconds later traveling at well over 11,000 miles per hour. I was thinking John Force, eat your heart out. Anyone not impressed by both the brute force of six million pounds of thrust and the split-second precision of this take off is just not paying attention.
It got me thinking back to that day in May of 1961 when we filed into the junior high school auditorium to watch Alan Shepard take that first brief wild ride on the top of a rocket into space. Now it does not seem like much, but then, without the experience and technology of 2009 it was quite a feat. No American had ever done this before and it was less than a month since Russian, Yuri Gagarin had become the first man in space.
September 12 of the next year saw President Kennedy tell the people of the world that there would be an American standing on the moon by the end of the decade. July 20, 1969 my wife and I brought our second child home from the hospital and that night saw grainy pictures of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin plant an American flag and leave American footprints on the surface of the moon.
They tell us that a modern day car carries more computing power than the ship that took Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon, yet NASA engineers figured out how to do it and got the job done. It was a time when Americans believed in themselves and they were proud of their country.
Today's launch showed that American technology still gets the job done and we still have brave astronauts who fly these machines. Even though the news outlets recount numerous flights, to the point where they almost seem commonplace... they most certainly are not. It's still a breathtaking sight.
However, even as the Endeavor was hurtling through space, back on earth Police in the District of Columbia killed a man in a shootout just steps from the capitol. The reality of human nature intrudes on our moments of triumph, as if to remind us that we are not merely technicians and programs... just as it did in 1969 when Ted Kennedy's presidential aspirations perished along with Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick Island as our three modern day explorers headed toward the moon.
Bad things happened then, more are happening now, but there is still a remnant of the American spirit that put the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon. It may be working in a more hostile environment, but there is still so much each of us can do. We still have the ingenuity that got the job done then and is getting the job done today.
We have courageous, resourceful soldiers making us safe, when they are allowed to do their job. We have, perhaps, the most generous people who reach out and help their neighbors when they are in dire straights. We have beautiful mountains and sun drenched beaches. In spite of all our problems, the U.S. of A. is still a great place to live. Although it's 233 years old, it still has all the potential in the world and is worth fighting for.
Sometimes we can get so hung up on the problems our country faces that we forget the purple mountain majesties and the bountiful fruited plains. We are truly blessed to live in this country. We have a country to be proud of and a country worth working and fighting for.
Larry D Miller is a web developer who has been involved in the political world for the past twenty some years. His company, Simple Webs, works with organizatins and candidates and can be seen at http://www.simplewebs.biz and his current project, http://www.politicalchristian.org examines the relationship between Christians and the political sphere.
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