A Cry Heard Round The World: Kim Sun-Il died desperate and alone, but he did not die unheard.
Looking At And Longing For Mars: Reflections on a childhood dream.
A Robot May Not Harm a Human Being. Is The Opposite True?: Thoughts on the future rights of artificial intelligence.
Long After The Boys Of Summer Have Gone: What makes a relationship work?
Winter Of Our Feline Discontent: What the cat wants, the cat gets. But what DOES it want?
To Tell The Truth: There may be no honor among thieves, but can't we find it even in a few good men and women?
Should The Human Brain Retire?: We know that we cannot win forever. We know that machines will continue to improve. So why don't we let the human brain retire gracefully now, with honors?
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Published: Sep 16, 2005 01:41 PM
Mon - June 21, 2004
When You Wish Upon A Star
Less than a week after Al Qaeda beheaded American Paul Johnson in its continuing effort to restore the Middle East to a medieval caliphate ruled by religious fiat comes the successful suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne, a private initiative that represents the best of which humankind is capable.
Could there be a starker study in contrasts?
On the one hand, murderous religious zealots caught up in the imagined glories of a bygone era, dedicated to the proposition that all learning must be filtered, all understanding tempered by the repressive flame of orthodoxy; on the other, individuals committed to opening new frontiers of knowledge, not because it is easy or certain but because it is hard.
Outer space embodies freedom. It is the final frontier, the last unclimbed mountain in an era that has seen more accelerated technological and social change than any that came before. Such rapid metamorphosis can't help but frighten those who take comfort in certitude. So it is not surprising that some would demand that the world slow down, rest apace, even rewind its historical clock.
Yet we are not a species made to stand still. Endowed by our Creator with inalienable curiosity, we ask new questions, pose new problems, thrust ourselves like moths at the flickering candle of understanding. We've learned that we must grow and change or die. And if our growing pains sometimes create new ills, then we will confront those too. That challenge is a paltry price to pay for dispelling the ignorance that impedes our liberty.
Change is inevitable, but progress is not. So as we mark the day in history when space shrugged off its government-only label and opened its arms to we the governed, let us also pay homage to God's most unique gift: our ability to choose how we will live our lives. For we alone will decide whether to use the Earth for good or for evil or to employ space as a place to repress our fellows or to express our better nature.
Already, there is hope. For if designer Burt Rutan and his 62-year-old pilot, Mike Melvill never considered Osama Bin Laden's politics when they planned their craft's flight 62 miles into Earth's upper atmosphere, it is enough to know that the private pursuit of space flight could neither exist nor prevail outside the fertile womb of a society that respects creativity, admires perseverance, and rewards discovery—all the very antitheses of fascism.
It is enough to realize that while an American citizen died on Friday for the sake of hate, another American struck a mighty blow on Monday for the sake of science and the betterment of all mankind.
It is enough to ponder that Bin Laden's descendants, gazing up at the firmament on clear desert evenings, will behold with wonder SpaceShipOne's progeny—the newest stars in the heavens—blazing brilliant white exclamation points of freedom under a jeweled sky.