As an English child of the '50's, I was in awe of American culture. England was still trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered infrastructure and struggling with an post-war economy that seemed to go nowhere. Culturally, the British Empire had eclipsed and there was nothing to take its place. Simply put, there was no cultural direction, except perhaps a vague longing for some sort of idealized pre WWII condition.
But there was light. Rock'n Roll was seeping in, occasionally bullying its way onto the stuffy British radio. My generation drifted into our teenage years, and the magnificence of American materialism hit us like a cultural LSD sledge-hammer. Suddenly there was a future, the Beach Boys, space shots, fantastic cars, hot dogs, chewing gum, Coca-Cola, Twiggy. My generation didn't know where we were going, but we were loving the journey. The British Isles emulated this cultural dynamo, the results of which are so obvious today that we don't even think about it.
Then those damn Americans blew us all away by going the Moon! I don't know how you Yanks felt about that at the time, but we folks on the cultural margins stood in gob-smacked awe. Was there nothing the US could not do?
I still can't come to terms with what exactly happened next, or rather what didn't happen. Looking back, it was was as if the United States became bored with their unique brand of bright-eyed, bushy tailed, 'Gee Willikers' can-do approach to the Universe.
Already in the making, the US became drawn into a never-ending stream of sordid international police-actions that took the place of those wonderfully shiny, noisy things that had issued in an unending stream from their culture.
NASA will be getting ready to launch its last aged Space Shuttle, and after that?
The United States placed Mankind on the moon in 1969, seemingly putting teeth in Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey." We, on the fringes of the culture thought it was a done deal, after all - there was nothing the Americans could not do. We watched eagerly for the settlements on the Moon.
And then - nothing. Let me tell you, the dashing of these expectations did not go unnoticed by the rest of the World. Suddenly, our cultural expectations of the United States masked the reality. NASA was essentially disbanded and gutted after the Moon Missions, thousands of specialized technicians found themselves cast aside and the 'Final Frontier' became merely a series of TV shows. There was no up-and-coming next-best thing.
To be sure, the American invention of the Web is absolutely mind-boggling and will in all likelihood shape our species in ways we can't even begin to guess at, but it is in an entirely different cultural classification. It allows us to discuss big shiny things, but that is not the same as creating them.
Culturally, a sort of penny-pinching mental attitude as wormed its way into the American psyche. How many times have I heard someone say, "We can't afford a Space Program. Not until we have fed the poor." Well, for all intents and purposes you don't have a Space Program, and did you manage to feed the poor? Huh? Huh?
Americans showed the French how it should be done, building the Panama Canal beating the builders of the Eiffel Tower at their own game. Then there was the Hoover Dam, created in the midst of a crushing depression. The United States was, and continues to be an amazing phenomenon, the likes of which the World has never seen before. It somehow magically renews itself and amazes the World. Just when you begin to think the party is over, there is another glittering present under the tree.
So.
What are you going to do next, America?