~Neil Armstrong.
50 years ago tonight, on July 20th, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.
50 years ago, it seemed like the world was on fire. America was tearing itself apart over various political, racial and social issues. The Vietnam War was still raging full force, and the Cold War had no end in sight, with the ever-present threat of nuclear Armageddon always potentially mere minutes in the future.
But, for all too brief of a moment, people all around the world came together to follow the events unfolding on the Sea of Tranquility, in reality a dusty plain on the face of our Sister-world in the deep, cold dark. For a brief span of hours, every person on the Earth could feel like a brave explorer as we all faced the unknown together, as one people.
I'm a hit fast forward now.
The world is still on fire, America is still tearing itself apart over the same political, racial and social issues, and trade jungles for deserts and even the wars are still raging.
A new cold war is in the offing, and even the threat of the nuclear flash...of the cold dark night suddenly becoming brighter than a thousand suns...seems insidiously invigorated.
Add to that Climate Change, Conspiracy Theories, Cyber-warfare, Nationalism, Racism, Religious Fanaticism, Sexism, Terrorism, War...It's not just that we haven't learned one damned thing...it's that some of us seem literally hell-bent on making things worse, for no reason in particular, or for political gain, or wealth, or hell I don't know, maybe some people really do just want to watch the world burn.
And, none too coincidentally, the United States of America had a Republican President at the time.
Now, compared to Trump, I'm fairly certain that Nixon...who signed legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency, greatly expanded the roles of women in the military, actively worked for peace with Communist China and who...faced with a vastly, fundamentally different electorate, a different GOP and a different political climate...resigned when the heat got too bad and he was about to be impeached...would basically be considered just another pinko socialist by today's Trump Supporters.
This despite the fact that Republicans used Tricky Dick as a political Revenge Totem for half a century.
As if he, or for that matter Reagan, would ever be accepted in any capacity other than dead object of worship today.
And for all that, what have we really accomplished?
Oh sure, the cars are cleaner, the computers are far more advanced, the environment is better protected, (most) people are more conscious of the humanity and rights of others, but also the weapons are more deadly and numerous, the bigots are still out there, and the political crisis just rolls on forever, even though the only way to stop it from becoming much worse is to bring it to a speedy resolution, nobody has the guts this time around. If anything we have even less care for each other or social consciousness across the board than we did 50 years ago.
But the world is also drowning in willful ignorance.
This may not be a popular opinion, but I think if you want to foster better values than we have right now, find a constructive way to get rid of all these angry, bored idiots that want to do nothing more than upset the apple-cart, put them working toward something productive, and hell, improve technology while we're at it...I think the answer is we should make a serious effort to re-start manned space exploration.
Humans need frontiers, it's part of our nature. We need something to do with ourselves and as this world gets smaller and more interconnected, we keep finding out over and over again that an angry, bored, idle, comfortable, entitled mind is a terrible thing.
And you deal with that, by giving people something to do, and the means to do it.
We need to start reaching for the stars again, so that we can stop reaching for each other's throats.
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