“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”- Neil deGrasse Tyson
I grew up watching Cosmos, NOVA, and Bill Nye. I remember exactly where I was when the Challenger blew up on live tv. I remember trying to convince my parents to send me to Space Camp. And as a parent now, I see very little interest in discovery and innovation in the elementary school where my kids attend. Not only is that depressing, I believe it’s deliberate. While modern technology is expanding every day, and the internet, to quote Ben Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, is “a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another”, we have largely stopped looking up. An entire generation is now looking down at a screen to tell them what to think, how to eat, where to shop, and how to study.
There are several answers as to why this is the case, but the majority of them can be directly linked to one simple thing- funding. The United States ranks 35th worldwide in mathematics and 26th worldwide in science- according to a recent Pew Research study. NASA is all but dead. There’s no legitimate reason, in the US, to want to be a scientist anymore unless you want to develop things that destroy. And why? Again, because there’s no fucking money for innovation anymore. Science has become political. So much so that President Obama had to say this during this year’s State of the Union Address:
“Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn’t deny Sputnik was up there. We didn’t argue about the science or shrink our research and development budget, we built a space program almost overnight and twelve years later, we were walking on the moon.”
Senator Jim Inhofe infamously threw a snowball on the floor of Congress because there was snow on the ground in Washington, DC that day. “Fuck you, science! There’s snow in the winter! Case closed!”. And he was applauded for that behavior. Not by anyone with two brain cells to rub together, but by a growing segment of anti-intellectuals that would deny even the most fundament tenets of science in exchange for votes and funding from the Koch Brothers. And to what extent? The Russians are absolutely kicking our asses in space while we bicker about climate change and whether or not fracking is harmful (it is) or just a little tickle we occasionally give to fault lines, and they love it (it isn’t, and they don’t).
This will be the first in a series of articles where I explore the history of government funded science, research, innovation, and exploration.
Science succeeds, and this country succeeds, when we all chip in to allow government to pave the way for private industry.
This minimizes the risk for private businesses, increases their rewards, and creates jobs in bold and new industries. That, friends and neighbors, is Democratic Socialism.