The Space Shuttle and the End of American Exceptionalism

Last week saw the final flight of an American space shuttle, as Atlantis completed her trip to the International Space Station (ISS) and landed with no problems.

The final flight was greeted with nostalgia by many talking heads in the press, sad to see the end of an era in America's domination of space flight. For now and the foreseeable future, American astronauts will be ferried to and from the ISS via the Russian Soyuz rockets. I have to admit, I feel embarrassed that, after putting a man on the moon and fulfilling JFK's vision, we're reduced to relying on another nation to get our brave men and women into space.

I understand the budgetary constraints NASA operates under. In fact NASA has had budget issues since the end of the Space Race in the early 1970s. At the time, many in NASA dreamed that going to the Moon was just the first step to going to Mars. But the crises of the 1970s (economic stagflation, War in Vietnam,  oil shocks, etc.) killed the dream. Ever since then, American politicians have talked about plans to go to Mars, but every decade has gone by with simple talk, and nothing more.


As a young boy, I dreamed of going to the stars as an astronaut.  These days my dreams are little different, but I still look up to the skies in amazement. But beyond simply demoralizing the space program and killing American scientific and technological advancement the end of the Space Shuttle and cutbacks to the space program overall tell me that our nation has become unable to do great things.

Currently, Washington D.C. is the site of negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. News about the project, which was never much of an issue until now, has become more depressing and, quite frankly, more frustrating. A government unable to do previously simple things worries me. But we need to be able to do the big things, like addressing infrastructure, education, and sensible reform of Medicare/Medicaid or else our country is done for.

America is in decline relative to the rise of other, newer powers such as China, Brazil, and India. It does not have to be that our decline is a sudden thud, or that we even become less relevant in the world. We still shine as a beacon of hope and freedom to millions of people around the world, and our culture is still embraced by many. But becoming a nation that can't do the big things, the medium-sized things, and the small things...is a recipe for a nation that no longer has the will to lead.

Some think the end of the shuttle means the beginning of private investment into space travel. Perhaps that will be the case. But one hopes that this isn't the end of Americans being allowed to dream big, think big, and achieve even bigger realities.

--Robert