Losing Our Edge in Space
Charles Krauthammer’s piece yesterday about the budget cuts for America’s manned space programs had me in a nostalgic mood.
When I was a boy a picture of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon with the American flag next to him hung above my bed. On T.V. in the original Star Trek, which my father and I watched religiously, James T. Kirk is a “New Frontiersman, a Kennedyesque swashbuckler inhabiting cutting edge technological marvels. Later, manned space flight was Skylab, the Shuttle and the Space Station. It became routine and people lost interest. But at all times, America led. After the shock of Sputnik, Kennedy swore we would not surrender space to tyranny. From the mid-1960’s we never did.
For 50 years American exploits in space towered above those of any other nation. Now we will go, hat in hand, to the Russians and Chinese. Not since the Chinese Emperor decided to scrap the mightiest fleet in the world has a leader of a nation so cavalierly thrown away a priceless advantage.
Within 50 years wiser sovereigns like Henry the Navigator and Isabella of Spain stole a march on China, with fleets far smaller and less impressive than he who had the Mandate of Heaven had thrown away. Within a little more than hundred years, the tiny nation of Portugal would have a foothold on Chinese soil they would not relinquish until Bill Clinton was President of a country that did not exist at Macau’s founding.
I hope this retreat does not have the repercussions for America that that decision did for China.