RSSHappy Anniversary, Sputnik
October 5th, 2007 | View Comments
I find Charles Krauthammer’s politics to be terrifically frightening, but man, is he a good writer:
Fifty years ago this week, America was shaken out of technological complacency by a beeping 180-pound aluminum ball orbiting overhead. Sputnik was a shock because we had always assumed that Russia was nothing but a big, lumbering and all-brawn bear. He could wear down the Nazis and produce mountains of steel but had none of our savvy or sophistication. Then one day we wake up and he has beaten us into space, placing overhead the first satellite to orbit the Earth since God placed the moon where it could give us lovely sailing tides.
I was a space nut as a kid, completely fascinated by Sputnik, Sputnik 2 (and the poor dog), and the Apollo missions. I loved learning about stars and going to the planetarium, gazing up at the projected night sky, identifying constellations.
At the time, I didn’t really understand the political and military motivations behind the space program, but I saw all the benefits that came from it—everything from powdered drink mix to velcro to improved ceramics to improved medical imaging—and I thought it was all pretty neat.
From my admittedly limited sense of both past and present, I think the Sputnik anniversary is rather timely. Once again, there is a certain amount of complacency—people take the US’s technical superiority somewhat for granted, despite all the distressing data about how our math and science students stack up against the world.
But the political response leaves much to be desired. Bush’s Mission to Mars was mostly a media move to temper his image as an obtuse anti-intellectual. Congress seems to think that the best way to sustain scientific innovation in this country is to subject all students to federally-mandated standardized tests and to place immigration restrictions that make it more difficult to import scientists and engineers. In the meantime, they stir up false debate about topics like global warming and evolution, when the reality is that the vast majority of scientists don’t question the validity of either.
Thank God none of these people were in charge in 1957.
Yvonne posted this on October 5th, 2007 @ 11:54am in Education, News/Politics, Science | Permalink to "Happy Anniversary, Sputnik"
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