Today I watched the #LaunchAmerica NASA/SpaceX launch, the first launch from the U.S. since 2011. It was amazing, to say the least. The launch, which was scrubbed on Wednesday because of weather, proceeded smoothly, the craft was beautiful, the video, both from inside and OUTSIDE the capsule was incredible. I really felt that a new era had begun. One of the "co-hosts" on the "panel of experts calling pre-game," er, launch, was one of my very favorite astronauts, Leland Melvin. (If you don't know anything about this guy, you just need to look him up, he's awesome.) Some of the things that were included in the "show" gave me pause: but then, I'm old, and I remember NASA at the outset: all pretty and shiny, and in it for the good of the people of Earth, right? Well, Ok, not really, probably, but that's the way we felt when the Mercury and Gemini and Apollo spacecrafts launched and when John Glenn orbited the Earth and spacewalks were performed and when we landed on the moon. "We" being not just the good ol' USA, but the people of Earth. Today's launch coverage was somewhat uncomfortably like a football game, with expert commentators, and pre-game, and play-by-play commentary. Shortly after the launch I had to turn it off, because for some reason the reporters and the NASA officials started to sound like they were dissing Apollo and the start of space exploration, which, of course, got my hackles up. But I started to think about WHY they would do that, or why it would sound like that to me, and as it turns out, it's pretty complicated, so...hold on to your hats.

First, there are a lot of very disturbing things going on in the world right now, protests (very rightly so) in many cities: in fact, one going on in my city as I was watching the launch, so I had to ask myself, "Why am I sitting here rather than sitting out there with a sign?" My "friend" Leland Melvin answered that question for me after the launch, when he said something profound (paraphrase) "This is what we can do when we all come together." It's that phrase: "...when we all come together" that means so much. Bear with me for a minute while I explain: I don't remember if I caught space fever from science fiction or from NASA and the real space program, but I do remember that by the time of Star Trek and the Apollo missions, I had it bad, and for me, the real space program was just a means to an end that was shown in that SF show, Star Trek. The multi-cultural, even multi-planetary crew, exploring space together and relying on one another. Everyone has heard the story of how Nichelle Nichols was going to quit and Dr. Martin Luther King reminded her that she was part of something that had never been seen on TV before, and that she could be an inspiration. And you know what, she was. When you think about it, those were some dark times....one of the things that the commentators mentioned several times during the course of the broadcast today was that the Apollo program ended, but they never mentioned WHY it ended. The space program of the 60's and early 70's ended because it was a time of radical upheaval with racial tension rampant, and the PEOPLE of the nation couldn't justify spending money in space while there were so many problems here in their cities and their own backyards so they "scrubbed" the whole program. A couple of Apollo missions were jettisoned, and we started over with the Mir, Skylab, and the ISS, all of which were a huge leap forward. Once again, we were all coming together - in space. Sci fi has a long history of uniting the world, often because we've all got a new enemy: some alien, outer-space demons trying to take over. Is that what it's going to take? Are we doomed to try to kill each other until we're finally forced to unite because something comes from "out there" to kill us? I realized that I much prefer Gene Roddenberry's view of space: the world coming together, not to fight off some new threat, but in peace to explore and make new friends in the Universe. Maybe that's why I watched the launch today - because that view of peace and the future is all that is holding me together right now.

What do you think? #WhatDoYouThink?

...to be continued...