What I Would Like About Space

I'm going to do what I do best in this column, speak from ignorance. Today the world held it's collective breath while space shuttle DISCOVERY touched down in the California desert early this morning. I cried and I really do not know why. Perhaps relief that this was not another COLUMBIA tragedy. Truly, I do not understand a single reason why we spend billions of dollars to send people up into space for 13 days. I have read about all of the things we wouldn't have if it weren't for the space program. I just wonder if NASA hadn't discovered these things, would someone else? Is the space program a necessary part of the technological evolution of the human race, or is it simply a consensual partner in the enterprise? Anyhow, that's not what I'm writing about. I'm writing from ignorance, remember? I thought it was appropriate to load up some Electric Light Orchestra as I write about space. Aside from all the useful technological mumbo jumbo, I wanted to share with you what I would like about space. I think space would be quiet. Living between a world-class refinery and a nationally endowed shipyard, I never hear the quiet. When I visit places in the country, the thing that almost startles me is the very loud quiet. It's so quiet that it's simply blaring! Without a factory churning out product, absent an automobile with a sound system designed to raise the dead, and away from televisions endlessly shouting commercials at us, I think space would be silent. I would like that. I think space would be peaceful. Even though I revel in Hollywood productions like Star Trek and Star Wars, space is the final frontier of peace. It's the place that man hasn't turned into a war zone (yet). In space there are no suicide bombers, biological weapons, nuclear stockpiles, or grenade throwing radicals. At least none that we know about. It is in a space station that the Russians, the Chinese, Americans, and others share a table. I think space would render me weightless. Do I need to explain this one? And I guess that's why I somewhat regret space exploration. In our dreams we can travel among the stars and find silence, peace, and brotherhood. If we keep intruding into this beautiful expanse, how long will it take for us to turn it into the noisy, polluted, exploitive, violent place that our planet has become? Oh, I know that there's plenty of space. And even if we lived on the moon ... or mars ... we could set our sights even farther into other galaxies. But are there children laying underneath the stars tonight in some far away land, or someplace so close yet unknown to me, who are going to sleep hungry while we fret about rocket boosters and heating tiles? Would a thousand dollars be a lifetime income for them while we expend billions to the deterioration of our universe. We've been poor stewards of the earth. Let's leave the night sky for the dreamers to dream, and let's change an impoverished world. I'd like to leave it alone. That's what I would like most about space. Mister blue sky Please tell us why You had to hide away for so long Where did we go wrong? ----Mr. Blue Sky, Electric Light Orchestra