It was discouraging to hear Barack Obama's recent comments on the space program. When asked about his plan to cut funding on the Constellation program in order to pay for proposed education initiatives, USA Today quoted him as saying "We're not going to have the engineers and the scientists to continue space exploration if we don't have kids who are able to read, write and compute." That attitude is discouraging because the space program can have such a positive impact on our nation, including its educational system, if given the chance.
NASA's missions after Apollo would have been useful, if relatively uninspiring, had they been integrated into a long-term goal of exploration. Programs such as Skylab, the STS, and the ISS have provided a platform to learn lessons useful in long-term space exploration, but we haven't done a good job of exploiting them, because we haven't had a long-term plan for exploration. This has been NASA's downfall, and this is why otherwise intelligent people like President Obama fail to see the value in manned exploration.
There are a lot of reasons to support the space program, in particular manned spaceflight. Detractors tend to ask "what has the HSF program done for me recently? Ever?" ... and it's a good question. The problem is that people are looking for results in the wrong places. Everyone thinks that NASA should be giving us flying cars, and amazing new materials, and perpetual motion machines - but while we've gotten some amazing things out of the space program, its biggest impact was social.
It's safe to say that Apollo program had more to do with national pride than anything else, and that has a lot to do with its quick demise after the first few moon landings. Apollo was a product of the space race, and once we had "won" the race, there was no reason to keep running - or so we thought.
The Apollo program made us proud to be Americans and other countries proud to be our friends, and it also inspired a generation of students to become engineers, and a generation of engineers to transform science fiction into everyday life. So many of the things we take for granted today - computers, telecommunications, the internet, and so on - were created by a generation of engineers inspired by our space program. But now, after a few decades of relatively boring feats, the inspiration is gone - and with it the well-deserved pride and respect that Apollo brought to us. Students who want to become engineers and work at the cutting edge could do better in India, or Russia, or China. The thought of this would be laughable (if not offensive) 30 years ago, but in this world that we've created, we're no longer the innovators - we're consumers of innovations from what was once considered a backwards corner of the world.
A focused manned space program with seemingly insurmountable challenges won't bring us flying cars. But it will bring us national pride, and the collective inspiration that will motivate Americans to help themselves - a younger generation inspired to do better, and an older generation inspired to support them by buying American products, and encouraging American businesses. This will have a bigger impact on our youngest generation than any education program our political system will allow. Manned space exploration can represent a positive, peaceful struggle for humanity, not for America - but by undertaking this struggle, America can achieve greatness and, more importantly, the respect that we've lost in the last decade.