Near the end of the 18th century, Indian explorer and wrestler John Stuart provided Thomas Jefferson with the bones of a “tremendous animal of the clawed kind recently found by some nitrate makers.” Jefferson wrote to Stuart, “I cannot help believing that this animal, as well as the mammoth, still exists.” Jefferson called the incognito Megalonyx, “the Great Claw”. Clearly, the uncharted wilderness of the American frontier provided a stimulus to the imagination similar to our modern inventions of aliens and starships.
From 1802 to 1806, President Jefferson oversaw the initial work of opening the border. The Lewis and Clark expedition of those years marked the first United States government sponsorship of a scientific expedition. Labor produced economic and cultural expansion unmatched since, a new definition of freedom and dignity for the individual, and a haven from oppression, or a second chance, for those who could escape it.
By 1900, the vast territory that had been the engine of economic, political, and cultural expansion had ceased to meet the requirements of a frontier.
Nothing happened for almost seventy years. Oh, there was a boom, a bust, a couple of wars, and two or three spectacular displays of technological hubris. But nothing happened.
Nevertheless…
On July 16, 1969, an American Saturn V rocket slowly lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and began a four-day journey to another world. The Boomer generation remembers the event with a kind of pathetic reverence. Many hoped for the opportunity to live and work on the moon, or perhaps on Mars, or in deep space.
In December 1972, with the splashdown of Apollo 17, it became clear that the adventure was over for at least a generation. The Apollo Program, for all its spectacular achievements and a boost to the American manufacturing economy that lasted until the 1980s, left nothing of technological value in its wake. Even the technology to build those giant rockets is gone and forgotten after decades of disuse. For American aerospace engineers, Apollo became a warning about how not to run a space program.
However, in the ruins of Apollo, some people have found the seeds of a new beginning. Every summer a few enthusiastic space veterans and newcomers, kids and parents, businessmen and visionaries celebrate the golden age of space exploration with whatever they can find… movies, displays of vintage Apollo hardware, models, astronauts guests, slideshows, balloons. , and imagination.
In a typical example, the City of Lompoc, a bedroom community for California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, declared an official “Space Week” in 1984. A “Camp Fire Astronautics” attached to Camp Fire Boys and Girls began a campaign to decorate the local library with spatial art. They were soon joined by the Western Spaceport Museum and Science Center and the local chapter of the American Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics (AIAA). The children of Camp Fire operated a local theater, donated for the occasion by a supporter, which showed reruns of Star Trek and classic space movies. The Museum and the AIAA brought together nationally renowned speakers and hosted a space art contest.
Space Week was an awakening for the children who participated. One who was failing math returned to school the following year at a normal level due to her experience making change at the Lompoc Theater box office during Space Week. Another, who had never done more than the bare minimum in school, exceeded all expectations with her rocket report. They all learned the value of teamwork and doing more than their job, just like the teams that took the Apollo spacecraft to the moon and back home.
Some things have changed about National Space Week. To be politically correct, NASA now celebrates an international brand. (The United Nations General Assembly, taking itself seriously because no one else does, declared October 4-10 World Space Week in 1999.) to the moon on Apollo 11. But it still represents new promise from old ruins, something young and vital rising from the ashes of the defunct Apollo program, like the phoenix of legend.