Saturday, October 24, 2009

Whither Human Spaceflight?

The Augustine Committee has released its report on the future of the United States' manned space program, concluding that either we adopt more ambitious goals for risking human life, or abandon the effort. In, particular: "the Committe concluded that the ultimate goal of exploration is to chart a path for human expansion into the solar system". We concur. We have considered what ultimate fate awaits human freedoms and democracy in a world with an exploding population, a diminishing supply of material and spiritual sustenance, and a metastasizing theocratic movement of intolerance and hatred for Western civilization. It is not a sanguine forecast. We believe it is no coincidence that the political revolution that resulted in the most supreme expression of human liberty occurred in a New World, where the principal challenge was to carve a free society out of a wilderness. When this experiment was attempted in the Old World, with its centuries-old social and economic castes, it degenerated into score-settling masquerading as "social justice". Islamofacism is the most dangerous modern variant now threatening civilization, while the infatuation with statism in our country is a less overtly murderous but no less noxious trend. So let us say farewell, sail to Mars, plant Old Glory, and build a Newer World.