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BILL INGALLS/NASA
rm% street scribe
Space Gan Still Inspire
SCIENCE SHOULD BE RESPECTED, NOT SHUNNED
By Ed Tant news@flagpole.com
While Earth reels with worldwide pan
demic, environmental ruin, economic
downturns, racial strife, wars, riots and an
epidemic of authoritarianism spreading
around the globe, the heavens over our
heads still inspire curiosity in humankind.
In these times of doubt and cynicism, sci
ence can instill wonder in the hearts and
minds of people on this small planet.
While fear and uncertainty stalk this
world, some much-needed good news has
come from far above Earth in the past
few weeks. Earlier this month, two NASA
astronauts returned safely from a two-
month stay aboard the International Space
Station. Their launch was the first manned
flight from Cape Canaveral since the space
shuttles were retired in 2011. Since then,
America’s space agency has had to pay high
prices to send its astronauts to the station
aboard Russian rockets.
Even as U.S. manned spaceflight is get
ting back on track, faraway Mars beckons
humans who have long been fascinated
with the Red Planet, the subject of count
less science fiction yarns and the target
of robot spacecraft that have visited Mars
since the 1960s. Earlier this summer,
three unmanned spacecraft from the U.S.,
China and the United Arab Emirates were
launched to explore Mars and will arrive
early next year.
Sixty years ago, interest in technology
and respect for science were high among cit
izens young and old. In August 1960, people
around the world turned their eyes to the
skies to view the Echo satellite, an orbiting
Mylar balloon 100 feet in diameter that
circled Earth every two hours. The aptly
named Echo was used to bounce communi
cations messages long distances to receiving
stations on Earth—a precursor to the relay
satellites now beaming TV and radio signals
around today’s world. Though humans had
been observing satellites since Russia’s
Sputnik ushered in the Space Age in 1957,
Echo’s large size and shiny surface made it
easy to see as it arced overhead like a bright,
fast-moving star. I can still remember see
ing Echo as it sped across the starry skies of
Georgia on hot August nights. Newspapers
printed schedules of when Echo would be
visible, and the National Geographic Society
said that the orbiting balloon probably had
been seen by more people than any other
single object in human history during its
months of circling our world. The satellite
brought wonder to the eyes of the millions
who saw it, and it brought the use of the
then-new material Mylar into the world’s
popular and commercial realm.
During the same week that Echo was
launched, the Air Force recovered a capsule
ejected from the unmanned Discoverer sat
ellite orbiting high above Earth. It was the
first object to successfully return from orbit
and was a needed boost for the American
space program that had so frequently been
upstaged by Russian rocket science. Plucked
from the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the
Discoverer capsule was shown to President
Eisenhower at the White House soon after
its historic journey.
It now resides in
the Smithsonian’s
National Air and
Space Museum in
Washington.
“The Space
Race Soars With a
Vengeance” blared
a Life magazine
headline in 1960
as both the Soviet
Union and the U.S.
rushed to launch
the first manned
satellites, a first that
the Soviets would
achieve in 1961.
Here in America, the
X-15 rocketplanes
were breaking speed
and altitude records
nearly every week in the skies over the
California desert. At Cape Canaveral, the
seven astronauts of the Mercury project
would have to wait until 1961 to begin their
first forays into space.
I was on the scene to view the launch
of the first space shuttle in 1981. Today,
though, we live in times of surly cynicism
instead of healthy skepticism. Millions
in a nation that once respected science
now scoff at scientists. Poet William
Wordsworth could have been describing
today’s world when he lamented “little we
see in Nature that is ours.” During these
days of fear and uncertainty around the
world, science and space can provide a boost
for the human heart and an impetus for the
imaginations of all Earth’s children.
Many space travelers have remarked on
the fragility of our world as seen from the
lofty perch of space. Photos of the whole
Earth taken by astronauts on the moon
were inspirations for the environmental
movement that seeks to protect our frag
ile home planet. Astronaut Karen Nyberg
spoke the truth after her space missions
in orbit when she said, “If I could get every
earthling to do one circle of the Earth, I
think that things would run a little differ
ently.” ©
Astronauts Robert Behnken (foreground) and Douglas Hurley prepare to board a
SpaceX rocket in June.
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AUGUST 19, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
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