America has been largely dominant in technological innovation and scientific research but, owing to the slow-brained thinking of money-grubbing Republicans, that position is slowly eroding away as other smarter nations invest their resources in science and technology.
The backwards thinking of religionists in the party and congress have also served to drag down America's reputation as a leader in innovation and research.
Being an ancient, I actually was somewhat aware of the flight of the historic flight of Sputnik:
In the autumn of 1957, America was not at war ... or at peace. The threat of nuclear annihilation shadowed every day, flickering with visions of the apocalyptic. In classrooms, "duck and cover" drills were part of the curricula. Underneath any Norman Rockwell painting, the grim reaper had attained the power of an ultimate monster.
Dwight Eisenhower was most of the way through his fifth year in the White House. He liked to speak reassuring words of patriotic faith, with presidential statements like: "America is the greatest force that God has ever allowed to exist on His footstool." Such pronouncements drew a sharp distinction between the United States and the Godless Communist foe.
But on October 4, 1957, the Kremlin announced the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. God was supposed to be on America’s side, yet the Soviet atheists had gotten to the heavens before us. Suddenly the eagle of liberty could not fly nearly so high.
http://www.fair.org/...
I was seventeen, self-involved and ignorant in South Dakota. I was not even aware that October 4 was my father's fify-first birthday.
While the rest of the world goggled:
Sputnik was instantly fascinating and alarming. The American press swooned at the scientific vistas and shuddered at the military implications. Under the headline "Red Moon Over the U.S.," Time quickly explained that "a new era in history had begun, opening a bright new chapter in mankind’s conquest of the natural environment and a grim new chapter in the cold war." The newsmagazine was glum about the space rivalry: "The U.S. had lost its lead because, in spreading its resources too thin, the nation had skimped too much on military research and development."
I probably said "Ho hum," and wondered whether or not you could really trip on a combo of Coke (the soda) and aspirin. That and alcohol was the extent of South Dakota's drug culture at that time.
Only three years later, I had married, a mathematician, was more engaged in science and I fell in love politically with John Fitzgerlad Kennedy whose 1960 campaign for the presidency:
.... A commission appointed by President Eisenhower warned that the United States was dangerously behind the Soviet Union. John F. Kennedy seized on the missile gap as an issue in the 1960 campaign. He started a program to build 600 Minuteman intercontinental missiles to restore the balance. The Russians sent the first man into space on April 12, 1961. Kennedy declared that the United States would counter that with a program to put a man on the moon.
http://www.boston.com/...
Kennedy, as President, went on to say in 1962:
... man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
http://www.historyplace.com/...
Oh God! Give me a moment.
A president who speaks of being "first in science and industry." A president who is not a drunken turd. A president who respects intelligence and scholarship and real, hard science, a president whose theology soars beyond a rude and exceedingly rudimentary understanding of the fragments of a few bible verses that appear to embrace raw capitalism, the cheap theologies of the like of John Hagee and Rod Parsley and the shallow beliefs of the Creationists.
In today's Financial Times:
America’s dominant position in technological innovation is at risk unless universities and federal agencies invest more in young scientists and transformative research, according to a report released on Tuesday by a group of prominent scientists.
The report, sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, says tight funding has squeezed research budgets for scientists early in their careers.
The report is also critical of "conservative thinking" in federal agencies that discourages scientists from taking risks, and stifles research that may lead to radically new technologies.... For three years, the budget for the National Institutes of Health, which funds most biomedical research in the US, has been flat or, adjusting for inflation, down.
http://www.ft.com/...
Unfortunately, in the 110th congress we have the likes of those brainless clots from Kansas, Senator Sam Brownback, both Oklahoma senators, James Imhofe, Tom Coburn, Alabama's Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, all science-hating ignoramuses.
One wonders how cozy these fellows were with Jack Abramoff. Science-hating and being cozy with Jack Abramoff seem to go together very well. With a slice of religionist Ralph Reed on the side.
John F. Kennedy... Despite all his flaws... I am so trying not to say:
Those were the days!