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I've been pondering lately, and I think I can trace almost all of America's major problems to the existence of the Space Shuttle program. In brief, here's what I'm thinking: In the 50's, 60's, and 70's, there was a massive influx of kids getting into science and engineering fields. Most of them if you asked would tell you they were interested in these areas because of the excitement of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. Most of them would have wanted to be an astronaut but of course only very few get to do that. But more important than leading to a mass of kids who can't be the astronauts they want to be it lead to a mass of scientists and engineers that were excited about innovation. In the 70's, 80's, and 90's this lead to leaps and bounds forward in technological innovation that drove our economy into overdrive. We dominated the world with our advanced technology and we prospered. But those scientists and engineers are mostly retired now, or at least they've lost their edge with age. Their innovative youth is long behind them. And in the 80's and 90's the kids were no longer inspired to get into science or engineering, instead they were getting into investment banking and becoming lawyers and CEOs. These are fields where brilliant innovation can be very dangerous, as they are areas where greed is the primary driving force. All that furious innovative power was turned towards finding better ways to screw people out of their money, and as a result we had credit default swaps and all the other madness that crashed our economy in the past decade or so. At the same time the death of scientific and technological innovation in America gave time for the rest of the world to catch up with us. You no longer have to hire American workers to get your advanced technology built, you can go overseas for it where the labor is much cheaper and still have it done well because they aren't any less advanced than we are anymore. What changed? Why did kids lose interest in science and engineering? I suspect it was mostly because they were no longer inspired by our space program. There is no doubt that the Space Shuttle was a pretty descent low earth orbit science platform and it's fine for doing some more hands-on satellite work, but mostly what it was was boring. After the first few launches there was nothing interesting to see for anyone that wasn't already into science and engineering for other reasons. After three decades of thrilling advancement on the frontiers of space we decided to settle for a glorified orbiting Greyhound bus and we lost public interest. And so our brightest kids were instead inspired by TV and movies, which at the time meant movies like Wall Street ("greed, for lack of a better word, is good") and The Devil's Advocate ("law is the ultimate backstage pass"). And that's how the Space Shuttle - by utterly failing to inspire an entire generation - helped cause our economic collapse and the now endemic loss of interest in science and technology by almost everyone. The only way we can turn it around is to immediately start serious plans for manned missions to - and permanent bases on - the Moon and Mars. Although starting with permanent stations at the L4 & L5 points would probably be a firmer foothold into space and still just as exciting and inspiring. And if we don't do this our next wave of misery will be all the inspired kids looking to innovate in the fields of government and health insurance administration, two more fields that are probably best left uninnovated lest we further destroy ourselves. |
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angry.