By T. R. Shaw Jr.
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| Space X 9 Falcon Rocket lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Saturday, February 18 carrying a resupply mission to the International Space Station. This is the same pad which launched Apollo 11 to the Moon and most of the Space Shuttle Flights. This is also where our Voyage to Mars will begin. |
Being a former Navy Officer, I have
to return to the sea occasionally for a re-baptism of salt water and to think deeply
about life with warm sand between my toes. Apparently it’s something in my DNA.
When you are on a beach it seems easier to entertain
deep cerebral thoughts you don’t otherwise have.
I recently visited the Atlantic
coast of Florida. On this trip we stayed
a few miles South of Cape Canaveral, an area known as the “Space Coast.” The Kennedy Space Center is ground zero for
space exploration and Launch Pad 39A is where Apollo 11 began man’s first trip to
another celestial body. This is where
our Mission to “Occupy Mars” will begin.
That same pad just launched the Space X Falcon 9 mission
to resupply the International Space Station and became the first time a
reusable rocket booster “relanded” near the pad. We are now recycling our space hardware which
is a good thing!
I had hoped to see the launch, along with thousands
of other people on the beach that day, all of us looking North at 10:01 A.M.,
on a crystal clear Florida day, but it was a “no-go” at the last second. Unfortunately, we were airborne on our way
home, the next day when it finally lifted off.
I missed seeing history by twenty-four hours. I can’t get a check-off from my bucket list
of seeing a live launch.
Getting back to pondering, I’ve
found it fascinating that our Space Port is so close to the ocean. It’s there for a number of reasons, primarily
safety and latitude. But the comparisons
to space and the sea dominated my thoughts that day.
Both the sea and space are, and have
been frontiers of great exploration.
While we attempt to master space, have we mastered the sea? The answer is absolutely no!
Throughout our human existence,
mankind has attempted to master the sea.
We’ve always wondered what’s over the horizon and have been eager to get
there. For most of our human existence
we have been sea-faring people. The great
age of exploration involved great risks on the high seas; long voyages with
unknown dangers, dangers we couldn’t possibly imagine. The sea is a powerful force to be reckoned
with.
As we now move into a new age of space-faring, we
face the same unknowns and dangers as our ancestors who first crossed the
oceans.
The closest anyone has come to
“mastering” the sea is likely Great Britain.
For years the tiny island nation stretched out across the globe, colonizing
on, and near every continent. For years,
it was said that the Sun never set on the British Empire and it was true. They became master sea-farers, but could
never truly master the sea.
Water is a powerful force. Tidal waves destroy miles of coastlines in
seconds. We are presently witnessing
what a deluge of water is doing to California and the threat of rising ocean
levels may see much of our Earthly coastal habitat disappear in the distant
future.
Humans foolishly believe we are masters of our
domain, but water is something we will never master. We can control it and redirect it temporarily,
but eventually water always wins.
In our quest for life in space, our benchmark has always
been water. Where there is water, there
is life we hypothesize.
As I walked down the beach and looked back at my
footprints behind me, I watched them disappear with about two wave sweeps. To me that was a metaphor of just how
insignificant we are next to the power of water.
I was excited to learn that NASA wants to return to
the Moon soon to begin an outpost in preparation for the Mars mission, it’s
becoming more science than science fiction.
In fact NASA wants to send a manned mission into lunar orbit in 2018 on
the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission which first circled the
Moon. It’s a bold first step to getting back
to manned space flight and may happen if we can muster the will to do it. I hope we can.
While we look to the heavens to break free from the
“surly bonds of Earth” we cannot forget that the ocean still holds the greatest
mysteries of our planet. While we
attempt to master space, we must continue attempting to master the sea. The salvation of this planet will likely come
from the sea, not necessarily from space.
We have to keep exploring both. We will never fully understand the Cosmos
until we fully understand the “Inner Space” of our Oceans. Our future is ironically tied to the
understanding of both frontiers. It’s
time we got back in the game of exploration.
T.
R. Shaw Jr. is CEO and co-founder of Shaw Communication in Battle Creek, Michigan. You can read his blog, The Reluctant
R(L)eader at www.read-mor.blogspot.com
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