No doubt by now you’ve come to know my self-professed obsession with the world of human spaceflight. In my nearly 36 years, the boyish wonder I’ve felt on this topic has only grown. But all along, that same wonder has remained shaded by the reality of the dangers of the pursuit.
In the past few days NASA marked the anniversaries of both the Apollo 1 and Challenger disasters. These moments of national tragedy have often been drummed up in efforts to bring into question the value of continuing on. We’ve struggled, for decades, to balance the many challenges we face as a country with that uniquely American desire to keep pressing on into the unknown.
We keep following that path of discovery. On some level we accept that there is no further reasoning needed beyond the acknowledgment that we do so because it’s simply what’s next. With blood and treasure, we keep re-committing ourselves to a grand achievement. Only, until the last decade, our pace seemed to gradually suffer a stutter, arguably slowing to a lurch
And then the last few years have found us building to a sprint. I find it only fitting that yesterday, just days after those tragic anniversaries, we welcome the news of an incredible announcement from SpaceX:
SPAXEX TO LAUNCH INSPIRATION4 MISSION TO ORBIT
Many likely continue to shake their head when they learn of Elon Musk’s goals to make humanity a multi-planetary species. They scoff, still, about humans going to Mars in our lifetimes, not as the Apollo astronauts to visit and return, but to colonize and prosper.
Those dreams are both immense and imminent. But with the announcement of Inspiration4, perhaps those same naysayers will take pause and ponder the opportunity of their own voyage beyond orbit.
Now- 35 years removed from the Challenger tragedy – we are re-committing to space travel for civilians in a big way. With a renewed vigor, we’re going after the goals first embodied by a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first of us “regular people” to break into orbit.
Under the SpaceX model the path forward for human spaceflight is clear. We’re democratizing space through free market pursuits. As SpaceX and their future competitors refine reusability and collapse the cost curve, we come closer to the ideal our country sought with the space shuttle. A future where that final frontier is open to all of us who’d try for it is, finally, within reach.
I was less than a year old at the time of the Challenger explosion. But the images of that day, and those that followed, have been an ever present part of my own experiences of the wonders surrounding human spaceflight. One that stands out is the Oval Office address from President Reagan when he summoned the sentiments of poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr to soothe a nation in mourning.
Magee was an Anglo-American pilot who joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during the second World War. Only nineteen years old at the time of his death in a training accident, he left an unimpeachable testimony to the world on the majesty of human flight. As we look both to our past tragedies, and forward to all that lies ahead, his words remain an inspiration to me. I hope, as you think about what could be, they’ll be the same for you.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Part of the Possible 