Picture if you will, gazing at the iconic form of the Orbital Vehicle, commonly referred to as the space shuttle. OV-101, Entereprise, currently resides in a place of honor on the aft flight deck of the USS Intrepid (Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum). I visited her with my three 12 year olds yesterday, reminesing those epic free flight tests in 1977 when I was their age. Enterprise was looking particularly beautiful facing the Hudson River and the cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades this early spring afternoon. Her Hurricane Sandy damaged tail newly repaired, once again whole. She is still encased in scaffolding and work details were in the midst of assembling a new protective structure before the exhibit reopened later this spring. My children, having had their Enterprise appetites filled were beckoned by the other historic aircraft on the flight deck went off to explore while I took a few photographs and let images of Enterprise flying free over California's high desert soar from my memory. As I stood there deep in my thoughts, I was abruptly called back to the present place and time by the query of a couple standing a few feet away from me.
"What kind of airplane is that dear?" A woman asked her male companion.
"I don't know." He replied.
Being the life-long space geek and educator that I am, I simply couldn't let that pass. With no docent in view, I gathered my composure and inquired, "Are you referring to that?" As I pointed to Enterprise. "That is Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle." I went on to share how OV-101 was a test bed, carried aloft by SCA-905 to more than 20,000 feet above the dry lake bed of Edwards AFB and released to fly free and return to the landing strip thus testing the flight dynamics and landing characteristics of this new spacecraft. Soaring free, in the clear blue skies of the high desert. Grand images of my youth.
My audience was clearly caught up in my story, despite the cold wind of the Hudson Hawk, yet I saw a hint of disbelief in their eyes. Three thoughts came to me: 1) they cannot imagine this, which means, 2) somehow 30 years of magnificent history never touched them, and 3) how was that possible?
As the couple walked away, the second and third thoughts returned. How is it possible that the last 30 years of human space flight could have escaped two individuals in their late 40's early 50's? They came of age as the shuttles did. As I did. What happened? Fellow space geeks know all too well, NASA was not particularly good about keeping itself in the public eye for too many years. We stopped teaching about it it school. Children, and adults stopped thinking of careers in the space program. And, bite my tongue, unlike the Mercury seven and the Next Nine, the later Apollo and Skylab era along with the shuttle astronauts became nameless and faceless to the general public. Astronauts stopped being national heros. I comforted myself by thinking of how that was changing. NASA was doing a better job of engaging the public through social media, popular press, and a variety of wonderful education resources - some I proudly helped write. Little more than a week ago, a call to K-12 students and teachers to participate in the Orion Exploration Design Challenge invited the next generation to envision ways of protecting humans and hardware from the radiation exposure of deep space travel. My own students are forming a team to participate in the challenge.
Then, I came home and read the news that the sequester has once again turned education into a political football. I've been here before in my work for a wildlife conservation NGO. Budgets get tight and education and public outreach is the first cut. I argued, unsuccessfully, then and will argue now, how can we hope to continue tomorrow the amazing work started today if those who will need to pick up the mantle do not know about it? If there is no awareness, how can one be inspired to pursue a course? If we do not educate the general public, they cannot know why they should care about something so abstract an idea as pure exploration.
A billion dollars sounds like a lot, and to NASA's budget, it is a big cut. But let's put things into perspective: the national budget is roughly 2.5 trillion dollars. A little math here, that cut of 1 billion dollars is less than one-thousandth of the Federal budget. That's like the average American losing about a dollar in their monthly income. Literally pennies. These cuts will have a profound effect on NASA and little or no effect on the Federal budget. What's more, it has been proven over and over that every dollar invested in NASA results in several dollars return in the general economy. This is not the fault of one president or even one congress. It is endemic of a broken political system that takes advantage of an ignorant populous. Jefferson demanded an educated electorate. NASA's own charter demands an education initiative to every program. Education and Pubic Outreach are "mission critical." We must work harder than ever to educate the general public and our elected officials to ensure education initiatives are protected as if the very future of the nation depends on it - which in my humble opinion, it does.
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