Back to the Future!!

I am so impressed Elon Musk  I just finished watching the latest SpaceX launch! I have been fortunate enough to watch the last two launches as they happened. Musk puts it all out there on CNBC and other platforms for the public to watch these launches as the launch happens. What ego this guy has. He is not afraid to fail this guy is someone to emulate I think. Granted he has multimillions so maybe Musk's risk not such a big deal to him. Even if is project blows up on the pad he can just start over as he has done a couple times and do it again till he gets it right. I suppose he has such great faith in himself that he cannot imagine himself failing. Really what a role model.

I am fortunate enough to had been coming of age – – I'm not sure what that really means, but what I think it means in this passage is: becoming aware of what's going on around me – – in the early 60s just about the time the American space program was getting off the ground (no pun intended). Science fiction was also coming on television for the first time in a big way. For a science fiction geek like me these were heady times. I just barely remember all the hubbub when the Soviets launched the dog in the space for the orbiting of Earth. I want to say the Russians orbited the dog three times but actually I think it was the Mercury shot that orbited three times and I'm just mixing them up. I guess I could Google both options but I'll just not right for now the point is I remember getting ready for school and mom at the Today Show on like she did every morning and of course there was the launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral Florida waiting to launch. This was the real deal the US was really going to sit right there pushed the button and send John Glenn into space. I just did Google Project Mercury and Alan Shepard was the first in space but John Glenn did the three orbits a short while later. The Russians kicked our butts at first but we slowly muscled past the Ruskies until we stopped doing anything in space and I won't even get into that. I really thought we would be so much further along by now.

But now things seem to be happening rather quickly by this Elon Musk guy. This guy who's not afraid to fail. This guy who keeps stepping up to the plate swinging the bat and seems to be knocking each pitch thrown at them out of the park! I don't know about the rest of America but I do know I'm getting excited again with the idea of going back to the moon and of course beyond that Mars! Kind of sad for me, I'll be lucky if I can stay alive long enough to witness the Mars launch – – we will launch for Mars this just has to happen. We will go back to space, we will be in space our future is space. It's as simple as that but it's going to take a while to rekindle this country's imagination and collective will, to get our asses back to the stars where we belong.