Are you willing to ditch your GPS and the daily weather forecast? Would you like to return to the days when Japan could plan a major attack on the US without any American knowing about it in advance? How about going back to propeller planes no more jet air travel?
Whatever the inventions of the future analogous to those listed above America has just about killed them. By putting an end to the space-shuttle program and planning for the end to the International Space Station, America and Russia have turned their backs on a fundamental truism of science: Pure science leads to revolutionary inventions. And nowhere is this more true and more spectacular than in the pure science of space exploration.
With the drastic postponement of space exploration comes the ignorance of all of the inventions that could be ours if we kept our dreams. Yes, telecommunications, sophisticated weather forecasting, as well as qualitative leaps in aero-technology, agriculture and forestry not to mention spying out an enemys military intentions have all come from space exploration.
It is the height of folly, and surely the retardation of civilization, to stop space exploration now.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
