NASA experience a reminder to pay attention to greatness
‘It is rocket science.” So reads the coffee mug I purchased at the Kennedy Space Center gift shop recently, my typical tourist-like behavior on a visit that far surpassed my typical tourist aspirations.
We watched a launch from Cape Canaveral, visited the museum, and explored the farthest reaches of the universe, all in one day. We saw the excitement, no, the exhilaration of those whose dreams of space exploration became reality. We felt their joy. And I got the cute coffee mug with the wise quip. What a day!
The mission at Kennedy Space Center is to inspire. Mission accomplished. As humans, we need to be inspired, to see what we can achieve when we work together, to see how the total sacrifice of some and the total commitment of these space explorers has literally opened the doors to the universe for all of us. It is no exaggeration to say we can see the edges of the universe and the beginning of time (as we know it), thanks to these pioneers.
With all the craziness on this planet, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that our ability to see farther than any human has ever seen before has recently been accomplished thanks to these engineers, scientists and astronauts. NASA personnel are almost giddy when they talk about the James Webb Telescope, recently launched, what they’ve learned so far, and how it has helped them to understand better our universe and its expansiveness. Men and women with Ph.Ds. shed tears as they recounted their experience seeing this expanded version of the universe for the first time. Their sense of pride and awe was apparent, their joy overflowing that they were part of this experience to make this telescope, get it into outer space and then to see the universe through it’s lens. That they were successful is a miracle in itself.
In another hall, an enthusiastic older gentleman was actually trying to recruit the children in the audience to consider space travel to Mars as a career choice. This was no “imagine what it would be like” fantasy presentation but a nuts-and-bolts discussion of what it will take and how we will live on Planet Mars, one day not so far away. Those plans are underway. Some of us living today will see the day. We should be preparing our children for this eventuality. Daring to dream is what will make them, and us, great
again. We should teach our children to dream anything is possible. We should teach them to reach for the stars.
The launch, later that night from Cape Canaveral, was a spectacle like no other. (For me.) For NASA, it has almost become routine.
Just a look at the NASA website says it all. Launches from Canaveral, Vandenberg and other places on the planet are frequent. Launches by other nations as well.
The manned International Space Station has been in orbit 25 years. More than 270 astronauts have visited.
Humans are space travelers; we are already going where no man (or woman) has gone before. It’s not science fiction.
And then there were the tributes to those who sacrificed all.
Few walked out of those rooms without a tear in their eye. So many of us remember where we were on those fateful days when the souls of the Challenger and Columbia crewmembers left their earthly vessels and launched into the infinite and eternal. On their shoulders we climb, on their dreams we soar.
Our original plan was to go to the gift shop and pick up a souvenir. In my typical Griswold fashion, I didn’t think we had time to spend the day there when there were so many things we wanted to do on our trip to see my sister in Florida. The cost (about $70 each) was also a bit of a deterrent. I’m glad we bought that ticket.
In hindsight, where else can you go, spend $70 and actually see the universe? It was a day full of inspiration and dreams that you can’t put a price on. Kudos to NASA for bringing the universe to us.
I can’t wait to go back and maybe next time, the grandkids might join us and get recruited to travel to Mars.
The trip showed me I had become too grounded. Too caught up in the day-to-day routines. I wasn’t paying attention to greatness all around us, wasn’t challenging myself like these explorers have. So many of us are stuck in the muck, fighting each other over manufactured grievances, losing sight of what we can accomplish when we work together.
Even if we’re not space traveling, we need to see beauty and wonder all around us. At NASA, people with dreams this planet can’t hold are forging ahead unshackled by earthly bonds, discovering things on other galaxies never before seen.
Who knows, maybe one day even finding life in these other worlds? Through it all, they get us ever so closer to grasping the ultimate truth, that in a universe larger than we can fathom, we are all somehow connected.