Space Art 3—Me! A Spacenik?

I saw “Rocketship X-M” (1950) and “Destination Moon” (1950), when I was in the 3rd or 4th grade. It was the first time I remember visualizing going to the Moon, and even to Mars. This was one of the reasons I started off with Space Art. I distinctly remember man in space never struck me as pure fantasy or romantic adventure, but rather a portrayal of something we humans eventually would get about to doing. In another decade we were apparently on our way into space. All of the pre-dawn sittings in front of the old Magnavox b&w that generally ended in a scrub, did nothing but cement my conviction that man was doing what we were supposed to do. For me the Moon landings and the Spacelab were obvious markers on the road to the stars. And then in the next decade it slowly became apparent that we, mankind, weren’t going any farther than a low orbit. And the years went by and the human being never went any further than couple of hundred miles.


Have we collectively come down with a case of cold feet with the challenge of having to finally go outside…into space permanently? Recently Steven Hawkins echoed the words of Heinlein, Asimov and many other others when he said (again) something like, “if we (us humans) don’t go out there somewhere (remember Kirk?), then we’ll probably have a good chance of becoming extinct within the next couple of centuries.” He named a few of the bummer events that could do us in like asteroids, comets, plagues, nukes, overpopulation, famine, climate, pollution and others. To me this is a very strong medicine to prod us back into putting manned space exploration very high up on our list of things to do right now. So why do we keep putting it off? Why do we immediately say it’s too expensive and that it’s more important to pour out huge sums to save mishandled financial institutions and misbegotten military operations half way around the globe? Is this unending argument about humans going into space fuelled by political expediency in the face growing economic crisis? Or is this prolonged discussion caused by collective corporate fear of shifting power bases and endangered privileges?

When it comes down to it, we humans have been leaving the nest ever since we looked down out of the tree. Or the only way to look at the future is by looking at our past. The Earth is an island and it is surrounded by hostile space. And as far as we know we live on the only inhabited island in this neighborhood. Up to now our island experience on the surface of our lonely planet has had to deal with water and its ever present climate. Most of our island people cultures have learned how to navigate and dominate (up to a certain extent) the water and weather that surrounds them. As a race we have been doing this for quite a few centuries; leaving our islands to explore and expand beyond the horizons of our local beaches. One of these island cultures became a powerful empire. Others crossed vast stretches of uncharted water and populated new islands. Others hopped from island to island in dugouts to eventually populate continents. We have accumulated centuries of experience developing hulls, oars, rudders, sails, cordage, maps, instruments, steam propulsion, metallurgy, and nuclear engines. Now this experience can now be quickly applied to our vast industrial and technological resources. Today were are capable of sending humans to the Moon, the Asteroids, the other three Inner Planets, and even as far out as Jupiter and Saturn. And we have started getting ready to go ever since Jules came up with the idea of digging a hole to place a gigantic cannon in the middle of Florida over 150 years ago. As you can see I’ve been in Space for quite a while.