Mars: Because the natives won’t form a Resistance

Putsch seeks a less politically awkward way of rewarding his defense contractor buddies

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

01/15/04

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Science&Environment/marsII.htm

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m fascinated by space in general and Mars in particular. As a kid, I used to get up at two am and watch the six hour countdowns that usually got aborted because a cloud showed up on the horizon, or they noticed that Fred forgot to fuel the rocket, or some damn thing. Even back then, forty odd years ago, there was the mysterious and futuristic "computer problem" too. I’ll spend hours poring over the January 2004 National Geographic, which has great coverage (and even greater photos) of Mars.

So it would stand to reason that when an American President stood up and made a clarion call to return to the Moon by 2015 and form permanent colonies, and send humans to Mars by the year 20whenever, I would find that pretty exciting.

And certainly, I want the human race to move onward and outward. Our destiny lies there, and not on this one little planet. If we have a purpose, if we have a salvation, space is it. There is no human endeavor that matters more to the future of the race. I believed that when I watched flickering, grainy images on our 12" black and white in 1961, and I believe it today.

So even though I agreed with much of what Putsch had to say today, my response was an apathetic shrug. Partially it was because we had been hearing that Putsch was going to give this speech for several weeks. Thus there was no sense of surprise. And it gave me time to think out what I felt about it.

Part of the problem is Putsch himself, and it isn’t just politics. This is a man who, in the wake of the Columbia crash, was asked by a reporter if he had been to the Johnson Space Center before or not. He wasn’t sure.

What kind of person can’t remember visiting something as awe-inspiring and glamorous as the Johnson Space Center? That story pretty much cemented my view of him as incurious; intellectually and emotionally vacant, a cipher trained to make political noises, with nothing real going on inside.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised they didn’t dress him up in a space suit today when he made his announcement. When you have a leader who is little more than a mannequin, you expect him to be dressed up like a store dummy. "Mission Accomplished" and all that.

He’s about as poor an inspiration as you can imagine. And I can’t imagine him making such a call unless it was a way to distract from all the problems he’s inflicted on this nation while following his prime directive: the enrichment of his buddies in the defense and energy industries.

Part of the problem is that his daddy, ten times the man he is and still not worth much, made a similar call, and it went exactly nowhere, just as this one will.

Part of it is the times. Americans are frightened and depressed, turning in on themselves, and turning upon themselves. This is not the bold, optimistic, forward-looking nation of 1962; this is a country that is angry and disappointed, and that it doesn’t understand why it is angry and disappointed just exacerbates the mood. America of 2003 is a country looking for scapegoats, for simple answers, and a leader that can wave the flag in front of their faces, bellow "We’re number one!" and make them forget that they are angry and disappointed.

This isn’t the America of 1962. This is the Germany of 1929, the Russia of 1914, the England of 1642. It’s a country that is past its prime, and doesn’t realize that other primes lie ahead; all it knows is that things have gotten worse, and it’s looking for someone to blame for it, and someone with simple answers to make it feel better.

Demagogues always arise at such times. It’s when the Hitlers, the Lenins, the Cromwells flourish. It when you get charismatic puppets backed by vile men. It is France at the end of the 18^th century, it is a time when powerful interests make a move to seize control. It is a time when leaders are seen, usually with good reason, as weak, incapable, fraudulent.

It doesn’t always have to be that way, of course. America has been here before, in 1868, and 1932, times when it seemed that the future was bleak, when past glories left a sour taste, and both times, America not only survived, but went on to ever greater things.

So I’m not saying America is finished. Nor have I turned my back on humanity’s destiny to rendezvous with the stars.

It’s just that 2004 is not the time, America is not the place, and Putsch is not the leader.

Our time will come again. If we’re lucky, we’ll live to see it, and perhaps some of the inspiration will come from societies that have been revitalized that move to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond.

My guess is that Putsch’s call to return to space will be forgotten in a year, except for a few who might see the video of today’s speech with a slight sense of embarrassment for the monkey whose strings have been pulled in vulgar mimicry of Kennedy and Churchill and Disraeli.

I agreed with much of what he said. We must resurrect and complete the space station. We must retire the shuttle fleet and replace them with something that isn’t an engineer’s nightmare. We must return to the moon, we must go to Mars.

We must reach higher, stronger, deeper. It is our future.

But watching this pathetic puppet mouth these noble sentiments, knowing that in place of a heart of curiosity and drive lay only the puzzlement of an addled man acting out the manipulations of political advisors that he only vaguely grasped – it was like hearing Henry V’s impassioned speech at Agincourt delivered by Carrottop.

It was the wrong time. It was the wrong place. It was the wrong man.

America’s time will come again. Hopefully, sooner, rather than later.

But it is not now.