Maybe we don't want a Sputnik moment

[Johonny]

On Oct 4 1957 Sputnik 1 launched into orbit. It had no scientific instruments. On November 3, 1957 Sputnik 2 launched. It carried a Geiger counter. Before launch technicians had found a problem with the recorder. Due to political pressure they launched anyways. On January 31, 1958 the US launched Explorer I. It carried it's own Geiger counter. Having waited to have a working satellite the US discovered the Van Allen radiation belt. The first major scientific discovery of the space age. Sputnik won the propaganda race for space, however with Explorer the US took over the lead in scientific space discovery. A lead it arguably never lost after.

I don't want a Sputnik moment. I'd rather not just do something cool because it makes a great PR campaign. Not if other cool things do vastly more scientifically and socially. Bush wanted to go to Mars because... who knows it sounded cool to him? He never paid for it, never even got close to doing it. Never even sold anyone on the why. Obama is proposing advances in Technology that do things. He's not calling for a Sputnik moment. He's calling for an Explorer moment. We the US did Explorer :) Leave propaganda for talk show TV.

[Richardo]

1. Nicely said

:rec:

[Safetykitten]

2. I want a "we will take care of our people" moment.

[TheKentuckian]

4. Or at least a "we got to stop fucking the people over" moment

and maybe a "let's stop fucking our environment up like its the center of a Tootsie Roll" moment.

[emulatorloo]

6. People need jobs. Tech development from NASA created several new industries and jobs

That was the point of the story. It was about job creation.

[hfojvt]

7. that's where I thought the OP was going

I remember when I was ten years old. One day walking home from school I saw some McGovern yard signs. I didn't know, though, that he was the Senator from my state. But because of the yard signs, I was a McGovern fan. Then I saw him on TV. He was saying that the space program was a waste of money and the government should spend more money on domestic priorities. I was a ten year old boy. There was nothing cooler than the space program in my eyes. I had a jigsaw puzzle with the astronauts on it. I had these books and models of the Apollo modules. McGovern had just kicked my sacred cow. He was dead to me, and I became a Nixon fan after that. Then came Watergate.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Sputnik moment = education and excellence in it

granted the reality of what it would take they will not do. But that is what it means.

I'd like one, it ain't gonna happen.

Oh and thanks to that one you are typing on that cool computer of yours. It is the engineering of that era that translated into things like oh miniaturization and a leap in technology.

[emulatorloo]

5. The point was that China is ahead of us in technology.

It was an analogy basically.

The idea being that lots of jobs/industries developed out of the R&D Nasa did.

But I like hearing about the Explorer, THANKS!

[Ozymanithrax]

8. We don't have a choice with sputnik moments...

They occur and a nation either rises to the occasion or drifts into obscurity.

[Newest Reality]

9. The fuel tank on our

Sputnik is getting low. Even if we have a moment with a new one, it won't get far at the current rate of supply and demand, not to mention increasing demand.

The old paradigm is rapidly failing and do we get a massive effort to transition as quickly as possible? No. We get platitudes and old-style, visionary rhetoric that applied to a time when fuel and resources seemed infinite. They are not. Growth and consumption as we know it cannot and will not continue at previous rates. Without admitting that and facing it collectively, we are being diverted onto a desolate road when we could be making a right turn towards a resource-based economy and reversing our systematic values disorder.

Science and facts are not playing much into the political cards at all. So much is this so that each boondoggle or feel-good, public relations victory/pep-rally speech becomes more transparent: "Help us keep this charade going and please don't misbehave no matter how things crumble and dissolve around you! Watch the TV and enjoy the movies if you can afford either. Stay distracted and ignorant because we really need you to go along with the scheme so we can keep it propped-up. Please don't ask for or expect any political solutions to any real crises you crackpot conspiracy people believe in because we create reality, not you."