If you didnt catch it on Maddow, or other media outlets, The space shuttle Discovery was transported from Fl to Washington DC on the back of NASA's 747. It was this symbol's of collective effort of our national community, last flight. The last ride of an emblem of NATIONAL creation and capability. The complexity of this launch system is simply put... stunning. The effort, creativity, engineering capability to get this to system work took an educational system that prepared engineers and scientists, university research to develop materials and computer systems, private industry to build engines and substructures, and a government agency (NASA) to put it al together. Some explorers lost their lives in the use of this system, and we as a nation rallied around their families and recognized their sacrifice in a time of national mourning. Technology form the Shuttle program has found its way into our lives in countless ways from the ipad and iphone to nano-engineered cloth that is flame retardant.
It is a feat that no other nation has been able to copy (though the soviets did try).
So why am I writing about the Shuttle? Because something very interesting happened as the shuttle made its final trip on the back of that 747. People showed up to watch! In a nation that has been driven by the GOP to disdain everything to do with government, unity, community action, and common goals. Republicans and Democrats lined the runway to see the shuttle leave Fl and land in DC. Even John McCain showed up. A moment of national pride, among left leaning and right leaning peoples.
My thesis here is that we as Americans do still care. We fundamentally, deep down, want to create, we want to discover. We still want to seek those new horizons. And we take pride when we do it as a community with collective money. And, we admit it when we dont have the constant megahorn of Fox, and Teapartiers telling us we cant, we shouldnt and that it is somehow an insult to God. When stripped of labels and contrived ideologies, we can still stand together in pride of what we can accomplish. Afterall, we could have taken this money and given it to the rich, but we didnt, and the REPUBLICANS can be proud of it.
We now live in a country that cant repair its bridges, cant educate its children, and cant insure that its population have the same access to health care we had in years past. 40% of our engineers and scientists will return to the country of their origins now and we continue to think that everything MUST be made in another country. It is interesting that we dont hear republicans claiming that this is because we built the shuttle. I think this is because they want to be proud of what we did. Deep down, in places where they are no longer allowed to look, they too take pride in what this "socialist" collective did when it was more important to be Americans than it was to be republicans.