Like Buzz Aldrin of that mission, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer waxes semi-eloquently about ramping up manned space flight.
But, the ideas he sees being rooted in Apollo 11 aren’t.
Environmentalism? “Silent Spring” came out seven years before Apollo 11. “Desert Solitaire” came out the year before. The picture of the pendulant Earth as pale blue orb hanging above the curvature of the moon was shot by Apollo 8 (which he does note) and could have come from an unmanned mission anyway.
Beyond that, as for “going for the wonder and the glory”?
Been there and done that, to put it bluntly. We already have the pale blue orb pic, etc. Going back to the moon would be… blasé.
And, as I blogged yesterday about Buzz Aldrin’s push to land men on Mars, fuhgeddabout it. Even glory has price tags.
As for benefits? NASA is ultimately a scientific outfit; it’s not about poetics. And, if it’s primarily about private-sector technology benefits, NASA has paved the way enough for folks like Richard Branson to do that.
At bottom line, Krauthammer’s column is about American exceptionalism, a semi-soft-power version of American imperialism, and perhaps in the background, a little American chauvinism, and even a bit of American manifest destiny in the background, perhaps.
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