Annual Cosmonauts Day message
Sent this out yesterday to everyone on my Space Week list, as well as posted it as a note on Facebook, but just in case you are on neither, you can read it here.
Greetings, everyone.
First of all, this is a friendly reminder to all of you who enjoy Space Week that today is the anniversary of an event that was a true turning point in the history of humanity and one that is worthy of both remembrance and celebration. I am, of course, talking about Cosmonauts Day, which is the day when, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit our world. By a coincidence of the calendar, it is also the day when most Catholic and Protestant Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ, and to me the two observances illustrate almost completely opposite attitudes towards what is important for both individuals and societies and the situation in which our species finds itself. One represents the triumph of human intelligence and ingenuity, and the best of what scientific inquiry and technological progress have to offer; the other is part of a narrative of subservience, suffering, and of what happens when a supposedly perfect being is unwilling to take responsibility for its own mistakes. Thankfully, though, only Cosmonauts Day is based on historical fact, and its achievement illustrates that we live in a Universe where the only limits to what we can accomplish, aside from those pesky laws of physics, are the ones we impose on ourselves.
These days space exploration is probably pretty far down on the list of what most people think are the most pressing priorities for collective action on the national or world level, but I would argue that it is precisely in times like those we are in currently when space exploration should come to the fore. The reason for this is the same one I've been citing in my Space Week articles for years: not only is space exploration a worthy effort on its own merits, but the economic activity it generates - whether it is the high-skilled, high-paying jobs, the new technologies and products, or the valuable knowledge - repays any initial investment several times over. Fortunately, we now have leaders (in the US at least) that understand this, and the recently enacted stimulus package contains more than $100 billion for various research and development agencies. Equally important, not only from a space exploration context but for scientific disciplines of all stripes, is that science has been restored to its rightful place in the policy making process and will no longer be forced to take a back seat to purely political considerations. Though it will take time to get the ship turned and heading in the desired direction, the new course that is being charted makes me optimistic that we as a species will finally quit kicking the can further down the road and really get to work on the issues that affect us all, and in any scenario where those issues are dealt with effectively, space exploration will play a crucial role in developing the tools and strategies that will be needed to address them.
For the window within which we can pursue space exploration is a limited one, bounded by the availability of the material resources needed to launch spacecraft into orbit. If we are wise, we will use those resources carefully, with the ultimate goal of securing a new, space based supply of them. If instead we choose to devote them to other concerns, the window will eventually close and we will doom future generations to squabble over portions of a shrinking pie. To me Cosmonauts Day embodies the hope that we can choose the former path: instead of choosing to put nuclear warheads on every rocket and shoot them at each other, the Cold War adversaries decided to use some of them to advance human understanding and kept their fingers off the buttons that would have launched the other ones. Forty-eight years ago Yuri Gagarin showed us the way forward, and I for one echo the sentiment he expressed as he was crammed into that tiny space capsule: "Poyekhali!" (Let's go!).
Happy Cosmonauts Day!
Norm
http://yurisnight.net/
Greetings, everyone.
First of all, this is a friendly reminder to all of you who enjoy Space Week that today is the anniversary of an event that was a true turning point in the history of humanity and one that is worthy of both remembrance and celebration. I am, of course, talking about Cosmonauts Day, which is the day when, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit our world. By a coincidence of the calendar, it is also the day when most Catholic and Protestant Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ, and to me the two observances illustrate almost completely opposite attitudes towards what is important for both individuals and societies and the situation in which our species finds itself. One represents the triumph of human intelligence and ingenuity, and the best of what scientific inquiry and technological progress have to offer; the other is part of a narrative of subservience, suffering, and of what happens when a supposedly perfect being is unwilling to take responsibility for its own mistakes. Thankfully, though, only Cosmonauts Day is based on historical fact, and its achievement illustrates that we live in a Universe where the only limits to what we can accomplish, aside from those pesky laws of physics, are the ones we impose on ourselves.
These days space exploration is probably pretty far down on the list of what most people think are the most pressing priorities for collective action on the national or world level, but I would argue that it is precisely in times like those we are in currently when space exploration should come to the fore. The reason for this is the same one I've been citing in my Space Week articles for years: not only is space exploration a worthy effort on its own merits, but the economic activity it generates - whether it is the high-skilled, high-paying jobs, the new technologies and products, or the valuable knowledge - repays any initial investment several times over. Fortunately, we now have leaders (in the US at least) that understand this, and the recently enacted stimulus package contains more than $100 billion for various research and development agencies. Equally important, not only from a space exploration context but for scientific disciplines of all stripes, is that science has been restored to its rightful place in the policy making process and will no longer be forced to take a back seat to purely political considerations. Though it will take time to get the ship turned and heading in the desired direction, the new course that is being charted makes me optimistic that we as a species will finally quit kicking the can further down the road and really get to work on the issues that affect us all, and in any scenario where those issues are dealt with effectively, space exploration will play a crucial role in developing the tools and strategies that will be needed to address them.
For the window within which we can pursue space exploration is a limited one, bounded by the availability of the material resources needed to launch spacecraft into orbit. If we are wise, we will use those resources carefully, with the ultimate goal of securing a new, space based supply of them. If instead we choose to devote them to other concerns, the window will eventually close and we will doom future generations to squabble over portions of a shrinking pie. To me Cosmonauts Day embodies the hope that we can choose the former path: instead of choosing to put nuclear warheads on every rocket and shoot them at each other, the Cold War adversaries decided to use some of them to advance human understanding and kept their fingers off the buttons that would have launched the other ones. Forty-eight years ago Yuri Gagarin showed us the way forward, and I for one echo the sentiment he expressed as he was crammed into that tiny space capsule: "Poyekhali!" (Let's go!).
Happy Cosmonauts Day!
Norm
http://yurisnight.net/