Echoes from Space

Wissenschaftliche Studie aus dem Jahr 2003 im Fachbereich Astronomie, Note: keine, , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Whether Neil Armstrong's "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,"was inspired by the moment's greatness or the work of a NASA speechwriter, issecondary. What mattered is that people around the world, riveted ...

Wissenschaftliche Studie aus dem Jahr 2003 im Fachbereich Astronomie, Note: keine, , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Whether Neil Armstrong's "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,"was inspired by the moment's greatness or the work of a NASA speechwriter, issecondary. What mattered is that people around the world, riveted to their flickeringblack and white TV-sets, instinctively understood that they witnessed more than alanding on our moon: Humanity’s shedding of the shackles of gravity.Yes, those few words from an astronaut on lunar ground heralded nothing lessthan that we, humans, were no longer inseparably bonded to planet Earth. That humanmind had surmounted the barrier that, through the eons of history, towered between ourworld and the immensity of the cosmos.Such was the overture to the "roaring sixties", those decades of scientificachievements which got us as close as one can get to a regular airline to the moon, andas fringe benefits, lead to the launch of space-station “Skylab”, robotic touchdowns onVenus and Mars, and close-up photographs by unmanned space probes out to theboundaries of the solar system.But then, unseen at first, a shadow fell over the concept of tearing down thebarriers banning us from the immensity of the worlds beyond Earth. All of a suddenstaggering breakthroughs did little to preserve the spirit of those who, a few yearsbefore, had crowded Cape Canaveral for a glimpse at the launch of the first lunarrockets, and the billions of people who ecstatically cheered Neil Armstrong's first stepson lunar ground.As if a few short years had taught people to silently look the other way as Congress yielded to a few protesting welfare junkies while politics triumphed overscience and money won out over the mind.Had Armstrong’s gigantic step forward lead into an equally gigantic stepbackward, as if those in power had tolerated all space efforts for reasons no fartherreaching than to make good on JFK’s ten years deadline for beating the Soviets to themoon? Or should we seek deeper causes for the death of a spirit that, like the onceunstoppable wave of settlers’ westwards, had propelled Americans into space?Something stronger than congressional bickering, a feeling of disappointment, deepenough to uproot all former enthusiasm for human achievements? A broken promise, awish ignored? [...]