Space: The Final Frontier.
Eight hundred years ago, we thought it was a system of concentric glass spheres in which the stars and planets were set by the hand of the Almighty. One hundred fifty years ago, we thought it was filled with a mysterious substance called "ether" - the only way we could explain the transmission of light waves.
Now, we understand that it's (mostly) a vacuum - a vacuum occasionally dotted by little marbles of matter, of resources, and (occasionally) of life. A vacuum constantly humming with background radiation, gravitational and magnetic forces, and of course the energy given by the only power plant the Earth has ever really had, the Sun. A vacuum of infinite possibilities, infinite promise, infinite hope.
Last night, we sent seven more people into the vacuum, to do more work on the first permanent settlement there. Seven more people, propelled atop a controlled bomb, hurtling at 15,000 miles per hour into orbit away from the only home humanity has ever known... and aside from a few self-described "nerds" and "geeks," nobody really paid any attention.
On December 17 - a week from today - it will be the 34th anniversary of the last time a human being walked on the Moon. A program that had such promise - we put a man on the %#$%ing Moon, for God's sakes - was scuttled, partially by Democrats, because of more "pressing" problems on Earth.
I can sympathize with this argument. Looking at the masses of humanity still living in starvation, racked by disease and thirst and poverty, struggling to get by, it seems to make sense to me that we should put our resources there instead of into a relative "luxury" like spaceflight. But that's only if I look at spaceflight as a luxury - and I don't think we should do that. Put quite succinctly, space is the future of humanity. And while we should undoubtedly see to it that the world is fed, clothed, given water, and cured of disease, we should also see to it that the foundation is laid for the next great adventure awaiting our species.
Humanity, for better or worse, has always been an expanding species. For better or worse, we have always found and conquered new frontiers; there has always been a "wild land" on the edges of civilization, ready to be explored (even if it was, to our eternal shame, already inhabited). Now that virtually the entire Earth has been documented and visited and explored, what frontiers remain? Where can we go from here? The only direction we can go is up - and this time, we're almost guaranteed that we won't be committing the great moral affront of taking someone else's land.
When the history books are written, what will future generations say about this time of relative peace and opportunity? Will they look at us and say, "they had their chance to take the next step, but were too afraid and too shortsighted to take it"? Or will they say, "they took their chance and moved forward"?
What we need is for our leaders to give us a mandate, like Kennedy did 40 years ago. What we need is for our leaders to see the big picture - not only for our country, but for our species. What we need is a grassroots effort - not only to make humanity's lot on earth better, as we must do, but to simultaneously move humanity forward, upward, to a bright and promising frontier.
To me, this is what being a progressive is all about - progress. Progress not only for our nation, but for humanity as a whole - in securing human rights for all, in securing the stuff of life for all, in securing our planet's resources and ecological treasures for all, and in moving humanity forward to the next phase of our existence - to move us away from this fragile pale blue dot that has been the scene for everything humanity has known up to this point, and toward a robust future in which we see the literally infinite possibilities that lie before us.
We need to expand manned spaceflight now. We need to support politicians who aren't afraid to make the space exploration program a priority. And we need to start planning for humanity's future - a future which will undoubtedly take place not just on this planet, but throughout the whole Solar System, and ultimately throughout the rest of the Cosmos.